Does anyone have a Smoker?

[StirCrazy]

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

[plutoniumJoe]

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.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by plutoniumJoe

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.

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....

Steve

[MMAX]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

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

Same kind as I have.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by MMAX

Same kind as I have.

have you modified yours at all?

[reefermadness]

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....

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by reefermadness

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

[reefermadness]

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.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by reefermadness

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

[reefermadness]

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

thanks...