Joining the Bronco Club

[J-Melt]

Congrats on a great find! I’m doing a first cook tomorrow on my new Bronco as well! Let us know how it goes.

[Sdell]

Only had time this weekend to do a burn in/ seasoning. I am going to do some ribs and chicken this coming weekend assuming the weather cooperates. Hope your cook goes well.

[Soonerpop]

Congrats. Always nice to scratch the MCS itch.

[Reds Fan 5]

You will love the Bronco. As close to “set it and forget it” as you can get. Suzy Bulloch and Malcolm Reed each have some good chicken and pork loin recipes for shorter cooks that are good test runs for dialing in temps.

Some tips:
Plan an hour for temps to settle and to get clean smoke

The barrel smokers produce a lot of smoke flavor, go easy on wood. I’ve found one wood chunk is plenty.

If you hang multiple pieces of meat, rotate the hooks. The meat closest to the exhaust will over smoke.

Cut rib racks in half to hang.

It can leak. Put a drip pan under the smoker just in case

The Bronco is a lot of fun to cook with and it is easy to manage. Have fun!

[Sdell]

Finally got to do my first cook on the Bronco. I hung a whole chicken and ran the cooker at 325f- 350f and pulled it when the breast hit 159f. I used KBB and two very small pieces of cherry. I loaded the basket and dumped a half a chimney on top to start. I put the bird on when temps hit 300f, but it was still burning with some white smoke. The bird came out moist, but it definitely had an acrid taste.

I am not sure if that was from putting it on too soon, running too hot, from fat smoking on the deflector plate, or just from the KBB briquettes. I am going to do a couple more birds, once with giving the briquettes more time to get going and once with lump. If anyone has other suggestions for what I should do differently please send them along.

[Reds Fan 5]

I agree with DTro. In my experience it takes an hour for the Bronco to run clean smoke. Likely dirty smoke, not the KBB. I’d try that before changing fuel.

[Uncle Bob]

I agree with the guys that it needs to run a bit to stabilize. One; I always start with a chimney (Weber 1/2 actually), gives a quicker start and for a comparatively short cook like this gets the heat at a good level a bit quicker. Two; one word............lump. I'm not a fan of briquettes that use binders like Borax and other "chemicals".

[J-Melt]

I also didn’t let mine stabilize for an hour when I did pulled pork today. I was in a rush. Because of not being patient, I had a major temp spike of about 50 degrees above where I wanted right after putting my meat on.

[Sdell]

Will definitely let it run a bit longer before putting food on and will switch to lump once I use up the KBB. Thanks for the tips everyone.