*****Official BBQ Thread - Suns out, Buns out!*****

Kimi said:
Gas Vs charcoal. I've got both. We use gas during the week in the evening and coal at the weekend when you've got more time. Works well
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This.

I don't have a gas bbq at the moment, I have one Kamado and a Gaucho grill. It takes the Gaucho about 40 mins before it's ready to cook on so it's only a weekend/large meat grill. The Kamado takes maybe 15 mins with a lighting kettle.

The flavour off wood is something to behold. The way the food picks up the flavour and the crust you get is so much better than gas, however gas is far more practical on a day to day basis.
 
Back on the subject of pellet smokers, I'm currently looking at the GMG Davy Crockett, I used one a couple of years ago on a bbq course and loved the idea of it what with being able to set the temperature and leave it alone, controlling it via wifi and even being able to set cooking profiles to get it change temps once the meat reaches a set temperature etc. As much as I enjoy the art of getting your temps right in a bullet smoker or kettle, there are definitely times when I just want to be able to leave them completely alone and not need to be checking on them at all and the pellet smoker I think will perfect for such times, and as has been said, the ability to smoke things at really low temperatures will be great, particularly for things like salmon which you really don't want to rush up to temperature.
 
I just got a cast iron smoker box for my charbroil gas bbq, it seems to work nicely

it will never replicate real fire and charcoal, but its a good compromise as you can pick and choose your chips
 
SoliD said:
Was in aldi last night and they had they're equivalent of this so picked one up. Should make things easy whatever the weather.
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Used this for the first time tonight! OMG starting up a BBQ has never been easier with a full chimney of coals! Definitely recmmended.
 
SoliD said:
Used this for the first time tonight! OMG starting up a BBQ has never been easier with a full chimney of coals! Definitely recmmended.
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Was it much faster than a firelighter in a chimney? Takes me about 15 minutes to get the coals lit enough with that method, is this substantially quicker?
 
So I have some holiday next week and I'm thinking Brisket from Turner & George but 2 important questions:

Point or Flat?
Anything else I should buy while I'm at it?
 
Do you get the same satisfaction from a pellet smoker as charcoal? Just seems like cheating to me to have an actual temperature control on your smoker! Though that's coming from a casual hobbyist, I can imagine if you are wanting to produce reliable, repeatable results at some scale, it's a great luxury.

Psymonkee I keep having the same deliberation. As far as I can work out, point is the best choice for your first brisket to ensure juicy meat and you can use for burnt ends, whereas flat is the choice if your looking to get 'competition' style slices that people think of when they think of brisket. Take this with a pinch of salt though as I've never smoked one, that's just from research. Soon I will though.
 
dl8860 said:
Do you get the same satisfaction from a pellet smoker as charcoal? Just seems like cheating to me to have an actual temperature control on your smoker! Though that's coming from a casual hobbyist, I can imagine if you are wanting to produce reliable, repeatable results at some scale, it's a great luxury.

Psymonkee I keep having the same deliberation. As far as I can work out, point is the best choice for your first brisket to ensure juicy meat and you can use for burnt ends, whereas flat is the choice if your looking to get 'competition' style slices that people think of when they think of brisket. Take this with a pinch of salt though as I've never smoked one, that's just from research. Soon I will though.
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I've smoked on both and if you're serious with charcoal smoking it's likely that you'd move to an electronic controller with that anyhow so.... there's not much in it.

I do like working with coals and proper fire too though. For smokes that aren't 6+ hours I tend to just use a kettle BBQ and wood chunks instead.
 
valve90210 said:
Back on the subject of pellet smokers, I'm currently looking at the GMG Davy Crockett, I used one a couple of years ago on a bbq course and loved the idea of it what with being able to set the temperature and leave it alone, controlling it via wifi and even being able to set cooking profiles to get it change temps once the meat reaches a set temperature etc. As much as I enjoy the art of getting your temps right in a bullet smoker or kettle, there are definitely times when I just want to be able to leave them completely alone and not need to be checking on them at all and the pellet smoker I think will perfect for such times, and as has been said, the ability to smoke things at really low temperatures will be great, particularly for things like salmon which you really don't want to rush up to temperature.
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Exactly that, I have a Weber kettle and a slow n sear and really I can leave that on its own over night for 12 hours so there isn’t any effort but then it’s my only grill so when doing something low and slow you have to clear it all out to do the normal bbq stuff!

My aim is to use it over night before a bbq and have the kettle going when I need it, I’m tempted to smoke burgers and sausages and then finish them on the kettle!

I have a gas bbq too but just don’t use it, I find it much harder work as it has hotspots and is not as controllable as charcoal I find, sounds mad but me and the Weber are in tune and I set up zones for various things so easily!

FrenchTart said:
Awesome. Pictures once you get it please :)

Need to double-check re wood pellets. I looked at a place called Liverpool Wood or something which seemed cheap but I think I ordered elsewhere. Bought in bulk so it was a good while ago.
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Pics will follow, will have to look around for pellets - not found a huge variety in brands thus far.

dl8860 said:
Do you get the same satisfaction from a pellet smoker as charcoal? Just seems like cheating to me to have an actual temperature control on your smoker! Though that's coming from a casual hobbyist, I can imagine if you are wanting to produce reliable, repeatable results at some scale, it's a great luxury.

Psymonkee I keep having the same deliberation. As far as I can work out, point is the best choice for your first brisket to ensure juicy meat and you can use for burnt ends, whereas flat is the choice if your looking to get 'competition' style slices that people think of when they think of brisket. Take this with a pinch of salt though as I've never smoked one, that's just from research. Soon I will though.
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Pellets with a PID controller get temp variation down to around +|- 5 degrees and to be honest I’m not far off that with charcoal and the slow and sear.

For me I wanted a seperate smoker and assumed I would go with a Weber smokey mountain but the more I thought about it the more convinced pellet was the way to go - I hope so as not cheap compared to WSM!!
 
I definitely see the attraction if you want stress free low n' slow. I'd still take a Summit charcoal or BGE over one myself if I was spending that much money, but they are nice bits of kit.
 
dl8860 said:
I definitely see the attraction if you want stress free low n' slow. I'd still take a Summit charcoal or BGE over one myself if I was spending that much money, but they are nice bits of kit.
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I have a Summit with a FireBoard and I still have my eye on a Traeger Timberline 850 :P
 
thewanted said:
I have a Summit with a FireBoard and I still have my eye on a Traeger Timberline 850 :p
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Where did you get the fire board from and how do you find it, looking at an upgrade on my Macerick!?

Summit was an option I looked at, I decided that would replace my kettle rather than dedicated smoker so talked myself out of that - same with Kamado/BGE, I see them more as a really good BBQ that can do some smoking.
 
Shimmyhill said:
Where did you get the fire board from and how do you find it, looking at an upgrade on my Macerick!?

Summit was an option I looked at, I decided that would replace my kettle rather than dedicated smoker so talked myself out of that - same with Kamado/BGE, I see them more as a really good BBQ that can do some smoking.
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I'm on my phone so I can't go into great detail, but I got it from FireBoard.com and had someone bring it over for me from the US which saved a lot of money. If you look through my recent posts in this thread you'll find some photos of the food I've cooked with it, and the graphs that it generated.

I haven't used it recently unfortunately because we're having work done on the house, but I love it. It's hella expensive, but it does exactly what I need it to do very well.
 
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