Food Smokers and Smoking Tips/Tricks/Techniques

I don’t use a water pan. When I run overnight or up early really depends on how I’m feeling (mood lol).

 

When you say overnight how late are you starting it and what is your approximate total time on the smoker

 

Say a large brisket. 10 hours cooking plus 2 hours to rest. Put it in the smoker at 10pm. Pull it at 8am and its ready to eat by 10am.

Of coarse you have to add time before to get the food and smoker ready.

 

Cheap, easy done.

 

I wonder how long my pellet pooper would run before I had to refill the hopper...

 

Google it? at 225* I think most would be OK.

The Louisiana Grill has a 60Lb hopper so it can go for days.

 

I have a green mountain Daniel Boone and I cant even fit a full bag in my hopper I dont believe

 

I recently did a pork butt over night, ran my pellet grill for 19 hrs straight without having to refill the hopper. It won't hold a full 20lb bag, guessing maybe 15-18lb at most. Still had probably 1/3-1/2 of the hopper left after that cook. I was running the grill pretty low at around 190-200 if I remember correctly.

 

Copy that. I did a pork butt for Easter at 225. I mixed pecan and cherry in the hopper but never just let it run all the way out

 

Mine was an experiment in several ways, I used oak pellets (trying to get a stronger smoke taste/profile), ran the smoker lower and slow, used some different rubs than I normally do, and also injected it. Overall turned out nice and tasty!

 

I cannot do an overnite cook on my pellet grill. Call me Nervous Nellie.

 

So I heard back from Rectec. Since my old Rectec mini was out of warranty they're offering me $200 off any of their current smokers. I'm looking at getting their mid-sized 590-Stampede model which would end up being $699 instead of the normal $899. I know I cannot beat that price for the comparable sized competing grills with similar quality.
So my options are the new Rectec at 699 or getting the Costco vertical smoker Louisiana Grills for for $459.
Thoughts? Suggestions?

 

Pending the weather, wind and construction of your smoker...it's usually around 1 1/2- 2 pounds per hour.. YMMV

I'd go for the Costco one and use the extra money for meats to smoke! Haha

 

got me wondering so I looked it up and green mountains website says I will burn approximately .8 of a pound of pellets per hour at 225... supposedly

 

That’s going to depend HIGHLY on outside ambient temps and wind. When it’s cooler outside that burn rate goes way up. Now the dual skinned ones are supposed to be better but I do t have one so I can’t really say.

 

So if you guess 1 pound per hour that should be close ... I know none of us wanna go start weighing pellets vs time before and after haha!

 

That's the one I'm looking at from Costco.

How do you like it? Is it too big? Will I feel stupid doing one or two tri tips in that beast?

I occassionally smoke for 15+ people, but 90% of the time it's for 6 or less people.Trying to decide between that for $459 and RecTec 590 Stampede for $699. I know the Rectec is high quality for the price, but I will only use it for smoking, so the "grill" feature of the Rectec doesn't matter to me.

 

this is the graph I found and it said the tests were done between 52&66 degrees and they use GMG’s premium blend of pellets.

 

Ya when it gets below 50 out the usage goes WAY up. I actually have a thermal wrap for my Traeger and it helps a lot.

 

Well for @ctagz as well.. My PitBoss ( the same as the one he's looking at) is double walled and no.. it's not dumb to fire it up for 1or 2 things ... But at the same time you can lay racks of ribs flat...and easily do 6 or more pork shoulders.. 3 or 4 briskets or a few spatchcocked turkeys or chickens.. and trust me.. you'll want to use the water pan in this style smoker.. 1 it keeps the melted fat from going in the fire pit, it regulates the heat (runs over 100 degrees hotter with out it) and you can run apple juice or root beer or whatever.. doesn't have to be plain water.