Food Smokers and Smoking Tips/Tricks/Techniques

I could be wrong but it should shut completely. My pit boss closes pretty tight and I do not recall ever noticing a lid not shutting all the way on any brand during my months of looking at them in stores before my actual purchase

 

it's early, and I am dumb.

went out and took a screw driver to my hinges, adjusted them a bit, and now I have almost complete closure on all sides. I might invest in some gaskets though.

First go on this fancy thing.

 

What cut are those that you're taking them to 195? They look too small to be butts.

 

Bone in Boston Butt, aka pork shoulder. One is jerked, the other is “Minnesota spicy” for our guests tonight.

I’ll take them to 205, but 195 gives me time to react.

 

Pretty impressed with this thing. I have my therm pro probes in the second shoulder and on the lower grate between them. Meat probe temp is showing 2 degrees above the native probe with the traeger, and an a 1-4 degrees below the native temp sensor at the top of the chamber.

 

Something to keep in mind about the internal temp probe: it takes an average reading of temperature so your external probe will almost never be the same. Don’t pay attention to your external one. It took me too long to stop paying attention to it and getting frustrated when the temps would swing 5-10 degrees. Just keep an eye on your food probes.

 

The chamber probe is just there to see variance and accuracy from what I’ve been running. I know they accommodate swing, and I can watch that swing. As long as the meat increases temp and the chamber temps are on the correct map-sheet, I don’t sweat it.

 

From someone who was in your position not too long ago, don't even set up your own probe inside. Just use the meat probe. I stopped worrying 100% about any temps in the pit as long as they're about what I have it set to. My cooks have been much better and much more drinking is able to be done in the process. Just throwin out some pointers that I wish I had taken head of earlier on

 

Hey, guys. I just picked up my first offset smoker yesterday and have it seasoning now. I've got a question for those of you who cook in one. When you build your fire in the fire box, do you load it up, or just re-stock your fuel as needed? With my WSM I do the donut/minion method where I put a half chimney of hot coals in a ring of unlit coals. That gets me 10+ hours of unattended cook time easy. The fire box on the offset is a fair bit smaller, though, so what's the best method to get a good long cook out of it?

 

Don't waste your time and money on gaskets for the door. A little smoke coming out a door crack will not make any difference, in fact on a low temp smoke the meat may get a bitter taste if the smoke does not exit soon enough. Especially on a cold smoke with a smoke tube.

 

Nothing wrong with an ambient temp probe, as long as you don't worry over a temp swing. But, if the temp goes really high you may have a grease fire. If it goes really low, the firebox may have went out. Ambient temp will warn you way before food temp will.

 

Anyone from the Beaumont TX area?

I wanna know about these beef sausages from that area.

 

Which ones

 

Hell I don't know..just caught the tail end of a story on ESPN 2 of all places... They mentioned a place called Gerrard's? And 1 other place.

 

Probably Zummo's there ok

 

No fancy pics here.. but I’m sold on pellet grills.