Food Smokers and Smoking Tips/Tricks/Techniques

Traveled on thanksgiving’s day so making up for it now. :turkey:

 

$249 for the 36” Blackstone - just a heads up for the homies.

Limited-time deal: Blackstone 36" Cooking Station 4 Burner Propane Fuelled Restaurant Grade Professional 36 Inch Outdoor Flat Top Gas Griddle with Built in Cutting Board, Garbage Holder and Side Shelf (1825), Black

$439 Blackstone 36" Cooking Station 4 Burner Propane Fuelled Restaurant Grade Professional 36" Outdoor Flat Top Gas Griddle with Built in Cutting Board, Garbage Holder and Side Shelf (1825), Black

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078HFRNPQ

 

The brisket was good - I don’t know what I was expecting. Slightly more buttery flavor, but I do not think it is worth twice the amount for a well picked Choice that can yield the same results if done properly. I’m happy with the experiment, it was good one time fun.



I also got some delicious cooking fat out of it!

 

Any of y’all have a favorite source for smoking wood chunks? I can get hickory and mesquite at Lowe’s but I’m not sure where to look for other types.

 

I like cherry and apple, they usually have those

 

I can get maple and alder when out wood cutting.

Ace hardware, Lowe’s, or Home Depot usually have a variety in stock. Not a favorite source but Amazon also has a variety available when I can’t find it locally.

We also have fruit growers over on the Eastern side of the state. I can get apple and cherry wood after pruning season. Just have to watch Craigslist for availability.

I love alder, apple, or cherry for fish and poultry

I use a hickory blend for beef

I used to use mesquite but broke out in a rash one time while doing a long smoke so I stopped using it.

 

The best cost I’ve found is Academy for bagged B&B (the best quality, in my opinion). $5.99 per bag and 1 bag of pecan and post oak each will get me through 10 - 12 smokes on the Weber using the snake method. I recommend checking the bags for good sized chunks, though. Wound up with one that was mostly splinters once.

Now that we’re in a house and I’m buying full cords for the pit, I cut up splits from that.

 

I have a couple choke cherry trees but have not tried to use it for smoking. Anyone ever do this...interwebz says it might give a little bitter taste to the meat.

 

Last couple bags I bought were at HEB. At that time, they also had cherry and apple, but this was a while back.

 

HEB.

I’ve found pecan, oak, mesquite, and all the fruit trees.

Academy has some as well.

 

https://www.houstoniamag.com/travel-and-outdoors/2021/10/texas-apple-orchards-visit-this-fall

The problem is "five apple orchards to visit in Rhode Island" I can hammer them all out in a morning, and be home for lunch. The first one I looked at is in Pittsburg TX which google says is 4.5 hours north of Houston........ so, your mileage may vary - but if there are any close enough, call 'em up and ask. That's how we do whole hog up here, but we have a ton of orchards around to get the wood from.

 

@GarlicFarts



Random…but had me cracking up again. Carry on…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L1JYHNX8pdo

 

Hey Guys, Ive been scrolling through for a while and needless to say, Im hungry!
Ive been wanting a smoker for a while, and Traeger is having a sale at the moment, so it seems like a good time to buy I guess. Im looking at the Ironwood series, I was thinking the 885. Does anyone have any feedback on that rig? or is the size difference from the 680 not enough to pay the extra $?

 

Go on facebook, CL, the like.

Find a charcoal grill - barrel, round, doesn't matter.

Try out smoking on that. Honestly, I wouldn't spend a grand at all, let alone without ever having done it before. How many people are you cooking for? It's just me and the wife, and she's a vegan, so I smoke for one. I typically get 2 weeks worth of meat from 1 cook (vac seal for the win!)

You'll want to get something that fits what you want to cook. I don't care to cook brisket or a whole hog on my backyard grill, so why occupy the real estate to fit those.

Just my .02$ - it's not cheap, so make sure it's worth your time and $$ before you buy it. Keep in mind if you plan to use it once, maybe twice a year - you can head to a bbq joint and LOAD UP for like 40$. If you only run the smoker twice a year, as opposed to hitting up a BBQ joint, that's 12.5 years before it's worth it (plus the cost of the meat itself, so definitely way longer).

You do you - at the end of the day it's your $ and your yard, but I'd start with something used off CL/Facebook, even an electric or propane one. Wait until a couple weeks after fathers day, when people realize it takes like 18 hours to cook a brisket, and pitch them lightly used on the classified sites.

I THINK you might be the first person to actually know that reference! Or at least identify it. I sent my truck into a mud hole that had a rock in it, after that I changed my tagline to Bang Ding Ow.

 

To be honest…I have a little traeger and my BIL has the full-size. They are nice for what they are. But when I’m smoking most of my meat it is done on an old Brinkmann Smoke and Grill. I bought it new years ago and it still does a great job. I use it on everything except for jerky and smoked salmon. For that I use a Big Chief smoker


These are great entry level smokers. And cost a tenth of what the Traeger costs. Just my opinion though.

 

@cory02taco

Here's my $0.02 on a smoker like @Pointeman's Brinkmann versus a Traeger. And maybe I'm just biased because the propane smoker I bought on Craigslist was incredible difficult to get dialed in to actually smoke. The wood chunks would either do nothing or just start on fire. No amount of adjusting got it to just smoke.

When I bought the Traeger, I set it to 225 and it just... worked. For me, that was worth the price of admission.

Regarding size, I have a Mesa 22 from Costco and when I was smoking corn, baked beans and chicken, I was almost out of real estate but it worked. Any other time when it's been just meat the smaller smoker has been fine. If you're regularly cooking for more than 4 adults, I'd go bigger.

 

For the money and quality, I'd have to say that Pit Boss is way cheaper than Traeger and the quality it just as good if not better.

Buy the biggest one you can afford so you don't have to upgrade later. You can always find extra stuff to have a full smoker when you fire it up. Put the extra stuff in the freezer for another day.

 

I made that mistake on my first traeger and got the lil Texas elite…3 years later I paid for a bigger model.

 

I do respect pellet poopers. I know some don't. But that is one good thing. Hit a button and it goes. I had a slight learning curve for using my barrel grill as an offset. But now that I know heat to charcoal and wood ratios and all that I can keep it pretty steady.

Careful with this. Open space on a smoker means you can fill it with stuff. whenever I do anything if there's open space I'll fill it with sausages or chicken thighs, because why not. If I had a bigger setup I'd be chock full!!!