Shotgun Smoker Report & Brisket

[Texas Larry]

Excellent write up. Thank you.

[HawkerXP]

Looks great. Thanks!

[Henrik]

Great write up! I like the fact that you left it alone and watched. I’ve learnt lots myself doing that. @Spinaker’s suggestions are good, drill a hole to get the wires in. And the brisket looks good!

[FireMan]

Well ding dang howdy Ralph! Better now than never!

[Ralph]

Hi: Can you tell me what size stone you ordered and how it is working out? Also, does anyone have experience with drilling through a Shotgun Smoker to run probe wires? Tha would be some very helpful information.

[NapMaster]

Thank you sir!!

[Sweaty Paul]

Great write up and pics. Nicely done.

[NapMaster]

I here you regarding the damper. I wanted to close it down but I resisted for experimental purposes. Next time I'll tighten it up a good bit.

I have another mod in my oven. I ordered a custom cut baking stone. This can be used to replace the water pan , yet should provide significant help with temperature spikes. It is 3/4" thick. Ordered it from https://bakingstone.com.

[Spinaker]

Thank you for the great write up!

You can always drill into the side of the unit and run some high temp silicone grommets through for your probes. I have considered doing this with my KBQ.

As for the temp spike, sometimes more lump gets going at different times in the cook, sometimes wind or even humidity changes. For this reason, it is usually recommended that the dampers be open just a sliver. You want the fan to be the only means of air being forced into the fire box.You do want some draft so the air has somewhere to go, but you also want to make sure that high winds, rain etc do not effect the temps while you are away. Now this was recommended to me for kaamdos and that is the only thing I have run controllers on, but I would suspect it is applicable to any rig out there.

Again, great looking cook and awesome color on that briz!

I am sure our friend Max Good would love to see this as well. I know the Onyx has been replaced by this model so I am sure Max will be curious to hear your thoughts.

Thanks again!

[RonB]

Thanx for the detailed report.

[NapMaster]

About 1K more would have got me an equivalent sized Backwoods smoker. I couldn't justify that at this point in time. This should last a long time. My next purchase way down the road will be a offset stick burner.

[DavidNorcross]

Looks fantastic.

[DavidNorcross]

Awesome. Thank you for the review. Seems as if they commit to continuing development they will have a very strong cooker. Looking forward to seeing your cooks!

[NapMaster]

Now for the real fun. Unit ran just fine. Held a perfect temp for several hours, then the temp went up for some unknown reason. May have caught more smoke wood on fire (no big deal). Fan was not running. I could have closed the exhaust some to slow it down a little but since I considered this somewhat of an experiment, I left it alone. Meat hit the temp and I went out with my temp probe to inspect. Point was good but the flat was considerably cooler and not very tender. UncleFester discussed this phenomenon not long ago. I move the probe to the flat and continued on. Below you will see the probe in the point, then when I move it to the flat. The graph shows the temperature change when I opened the door and moved the probe. You will also note the smoke chamber even went higher. Guess it got another whiff of O2. Dutifully I didn't fiddle with it. Just watched. The meat hit the temp within another hour or so. I probed again and the flat was noticeably more tender. Pulled it, wrapped in foil, then held in faux cambro until later that evening. Probably 4 hours at least. Temp at serving was about 145F or so. Other photos show the probe in the point, then moved to the flat, the finished product just before cutting. Sliced and served with creamed spinach. All in all, I learned a lot and I think I could improve things significantly. Had lots of leftover that we will use in other dishes. Hopefully, this will be helpful to others.

[NapMaster]

Once trimmed I had about a 12 lb packer. Dry-brined for about 15 hours with 6 tsp of Kosher salt. Got up at 3:00 A.M. and lit the coals. Put on the rub (6 tsp black pepper, 2 tsp paprika, 2 tsp granulated garlic). Set the Guru to 225F. Loaded the meat in at 3:57 A.M. Set the target temp at 195F. Went back to bed. Below is a photo of the meat before loading and my coal set with mesquite wood.