Does anyone have a Smoker?
 

I'd love to get a CookShack smoker or a Green Egg but they are a bit out of my price range at the moment.

I'm looking at the Weber Smokey Mountain Bullet Smoker. Does anyone have this one? How do you like it?

What kind of smoker do you have?

Cheers,
Vic

I have a bradley smoker and it works wonders. It's super easy to use and works great. We've cooked just about everything on it but fish is by far the best

Had a Bradley, wore out the puck feeder then the element finally burnt out. Loved it, would buy another one, but a six rack digital this time. Currently using a masterbuilt. It's pretty good but has some quirks. With only one element to generate smoke and heat it's hard to get enough smoke when doing bacon and hams in the summer temperatures. For just doing ribs and chicken it works very well. The masterbuilts go on sale at Can Tire 1/2 price a couple times a year. I got mine in August.

I'd like to try an egg too.

I had a masterbilt too for a while and since then built my own (which I then gave to a friend when I moved last year). Don't know how strong your DIY skills are but I was able to build a smoker pretty close to what the Egg is like and it was packed to the nuts with every feature I could think of (sad to admit but I could actually monitor and control it from my office).

.... Oh, and it cost me a quarter of what an egg would...

I have a http://www.lenthompson.com/truenorth.html and love it.

If only I could find the time to use it as much as I want too.

I have a bradley, and when it dies I will go with a digital one. Its simple to use & almost load & forget. I have done ribs & pulled pork while at work, just come home at noon to check it.

I agree. I found of you get a timer(like the one I use for my tank light) after a while you get an idea of how long different things take and you can set the time and it will shut off when it's done.

I have a brinkman gourmet (charcoal fired) but I am building a biger one out of a upright freezer so I can do large smokes and big batches of sasuage. it is going to be electric with an external smoke box so I can cold or hot smoke.

Steve

The Weber Bullet
 

I used to have a side fire box smoker and had many a good seasons with it. I liked the amount of food I could fit in it. Unfortunately it had uneven heating and it was difficult to achieve the temperatures I wanted. I bought a 22" Weber Smokey Mountain and love it. I set up the fire and put on the meat. Adjust the carbs once or twice during a 6 hour smoke and things turn out great.

I have never tried an electric but I not sure if you can beat the flavour of lump charcoal cooked ribs with hickory and apple wood smoke.

Same kind as I have.

ya, I do both and you would never know the difference, electric is still making wood smoke.

the biggest difference is the electric runs on its own.. ever two or three hours you need to add chips but other than that... my lump burner you need to be sitting there babysitting it, and also in my case with me going to be making sausage and bacon I need the larger volume and absolutly stable temps that are lower than I can go with my lump burner. Also I don't know if it is leagle to use the lump burner in kamloops....:neutral:

Steve

have you modified yours at all?

A smoker is something I have been thinking about for a while....

Any tips or suggestions on buying one?

Also for ribs....what is the difference to say putting wood chips in my bbq set at 275...??

I guess some cooking explanations for a smoking noob....

hmm lots of difference, although I used to use the bbq to smoke for years.. first for ribs you want it at 225 and you want continual wisp of thin blue smok. you do not want wite billowing smoke.

for buying a new one figure out what you going to make and how much time you want to spend smoking.

I smoke a lot but I don't always have the time to site and babysit the smoker which is why I am retiring my lump burner and building and electric one out of an upright freezer. I am building it with a PID temp control so I can set the temp and go back 5 hours later (time to make BBribs) or 6 hours for spare ribs. also when you do pulled pork you could be at it for anywhere from 8 hours to 18 hours depending on how big it is. so it is nice to have a reliable smoker that you can turn on and go to bed, waking up once and a while to reload the smoke generator. I am also designing one of thoes that will go for 8 hours between reloads.

for a store bought solution in electric the "master built" are deicent and there is a large amount of people using them on the internet. The bradly is good but I can't recomend it as you are stuck to using there "pucks" of wood so you are limited in what kinds of wood you can play with and they are expensive.

if you don't mind babysitting the smoker when you smoke then you can buy one that will burn wood or charcoal, here is where the choices become endless, I would recomend not to be tempted by cheeper smokers.. theres a reason there cheep. my brinkman was givent to me as a christmas present but I had to do ab out 6 hours of modifications to it to make it work deicent and it is still a finicky unit.

another thing to think about is cold smoking. if you want to be able to do this you need an external smoke generator.

finaly if your handy you can build one.. I built my first one from a old dish washer, others have used ovens and fridges/upright freezers are very popular. also you can look up UDS (Ugly drum smoker) made from a old 45 gal drum. take a bit to build and runs off charcoal but people turn out some good BBQ with them.

here is the best smoking website I have found yet.
http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/forum/

Steve

Thanks so much ....valuable information. You sound like you really know what you are talking about.

So.....I definately don't want to babysit a smoker.....and would like it to go 8hrs with out having to add more wood or touch something. Also I can't break the bank with it but also want it to last.......do you recommend electric? Which brand and where would be a good place to get one? Oh and cold smoke for fish would be nice....dont know much about that process but it sure tastes good.

Sorry for all the questions....but I dont know too much right now. All I know is I love smoked meat (use wood on my bbq quite often).....and would like to be able to do some more.

thanks again Steve.

well being in ontario you probably have a lot bigger selection that I have around here. if you go on that web site I posted there is reviews, recipies and all kids of info.. more than I could ever start to explain. but if your local canadian tires have this one run grab it
http://www.canadiantire.ca/AST/brows....jsp?locale=en

especialy since it is on sale for under 100 bucks, and gets fairly deicent reviews. your still going to need to reload the chips every 4 or 5 hours, but you can buy something like the amaz n smoke generator for like 25 bucks and get up to 10 hours of smoke and for use to cold smoke.

Steve

Holy crap....If I can find one (I know my local CT wont have it) I'm gonna pick that up.

thanks...

gawd dang Crappy Tire....I checked 2 CT's and they said they didnt have any and couldnt find a store that did.......I called and was told its discontinued.

Well if I can't buy it, why the heck is it on your website.?

That is too bad. I paid $150 for mine a year ago, happy with the unit in general. At $80 it's a steal.

I went in and bought one yesterday. it is discontinued for store stock only, so what happens is they order them as they are bought. what I did was go in prepay for it and they will call me when it is in. 2 to 4 weeks depending on where it has to come from. so try going into a canuck rubber write down the product number and tell them you would like them to order it in. if they say the sale is over, then tell them you were in and wanted it the other day and no one told you that it had to be ordered and you still want the sale price.. they are good with pricing after the sale is over. I think two other of my friends ordered this one yesterday or are going today also.

Steve

is yours a master built or a centreno? they had masterbuilt make a spicific line for canadian tire and named it centreno (not sure about the spelling) and thats when they used to stock them, but the electronics were suspect on the centreno so they quit having them made and just went with the normal masterbuilt product and hence quit stocking them for a store stock.

Steve

I am not trying to sway anyone either way (because I know that this can be a hot debatable topic) but as for babysitting my smoker, it doesn't really take much time.

I can load my Weber Smokey Mountain with lump and let it burn for about 5hrs with only one slight adjustment after about 1hr. I smoked a Turkey in April at 275 for 5hrs and only touched the carbs once at the 1hr mark and again at 4.5hrs to open er up and crisp for the last half hour. Still had plenty of fire left when I took the bird off. If I wanted a longer burn time I could use brickets and get 7hrs. I prefer to use the lump as they are nothing but wood and brickets contain fillers. I feel the flavour is worth it.

I would recommend the book "Low and Slow" if you are starting out smoking. It can be a little condescending at times but it would get any one new to smoking off to a good start.

yup and that the difference between a 35 buck charcoal smoker and a 400 to 500 buck one. I did about 5 hours of mods on my brinkman and it is still a pain.. I can't leave it for more than 10 min. I am slowly getting it better but here I have another problem.. no wood burning outdoor apliances are allowed and anything that burns real wood or lump falls in that catagory. I could run it on charcoal but I don't like the flavor it imparts.

only option is electric for summer for me. also for someone starting out electric can be very good as it is easier so they will get more good bbq results sooner, then if they decide they want the challange they can go to wood or what ever. another reason I am going electric is for making sasuage, you would be hard pressed on even the webber to start at 90 degrees for 2 hours then each hour raise the temp 10 degrees, till you get to 170. with electric and a step PID that I am using to make my big fridge smoker I can pre program this and not worry about it.

realy it makes no difference what you use for the heat source, electric, propain or wood, the only difference is how you apply the smoke. if you use a true stick burner then thats all you do, if you use lump, charcoal, propain or electric you have to introduce the smoke, weather it be by a chip tray or by just putting chunks of wood on the coals. the amount of smoke and consistancy of its aplication is the important part.

and heck when you can get a 300 buck electric smoker which gets very good reviews in the smoking comunity for 89 bucks, can you falt anyone for buying it :mrgreen:

Steve

I wish.......this deal is no where to be found.

did you go into canuck rubber and get it ordered in? thats what I did. they do not stock it in the store as I said befor you have to go in, prepay and they will call you when it is in.

Steve

Huh???

Like I wrote, they told me when I called that no stores have it and its discontinued. Do you know otherwise?

Mine is a Masterbuilt. It's been good to me so far. I did hear about the electronics giving trouble, but not until after I bought mine. IIRC it was the centreno brand that gave trouble.

ya it showes discontinued, but they don't mean discontinued as you can't get it anymore, but rather discontinued as store stock, so basicly they are dropped shipped whebn ordered to the store for customer pick up. so you go into the store with the canuck rubber part number tell them you want to order something give them the number. if it doesent show the sale price tell them the other stored have been giving you the run around for the last week and you would like the sale price of 89.99 and have it ordered in. you have to pay for it in advance as it is a special order and it will take 2 to 4 weeks to come in.

can't call and do it , you have to go into the store. which I posted to you 9 posts ago ;)

Steve

I did go in and they told me that they didnt have it....then they checked the "system" and told me no other stores have it and it was discontinued. I went two to stores and called a third and got the run around from all three. Obviously nobody knows what they are doing.

thanks for the tip.

Well its official..........I can't get one.

and weird enough niether can I. but they were happy to keep my money and not call me to tell me. so I went in and raised a stink with the manager as this was the 3rd time they screwed me on a smoker sale so in the end I walked out with a bradley for the same 70% off.

here is todays pics

getting here all seasoned up
http://www.members.shaw.ca/s.l.s/bradley/seasoning.jpg

and here are the appys (ABTs and Moinks) for tonights dinner ready to go in. (actualy there in it now)
http://www.members.shaw.ca/s.l.s/bradley/appys.jpg

More to come

Steve

Well now Im jealous. Looks good.

ok so worked good

heres the appys
http://www.members.shaw.ca/s.l.s/bradley/appy2.jpg


and the steaks and chicken

http://www.members.shaw.ca/s.l.s/bradley/steak.jpg

Steve

Mmmmmm! Atomic buffalo turds!

In another two weeks I should have my own peppers to use in ABTs.