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Ready to Leave BGE Behind - I need some help deciding

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    #16
    Originally posted by mug15 View Post
    Thanks to all for the many quick responses. First some clarifications: 1) I am ditching the BGE b/cause it keeps cracking AND I cannot find good consistent hardwood charcoal here in the desert AND Meathead (along with Dr. Blonder's famous "smoke" interview) has convinced me that sawdust and corn starch >>> hardwood due to consistency of its cooking/heating characteristics. 2) My reading convinced me that its not good to smoke fish and meat in the same unit as the "fishyness" stays in the smoker.
    I am not convinced of this myself. Do it all the time. FWIW.

    Comment


    • Polarbear777
      Polarbear777 commented
      Editing a comment
      I fire up fish all the time as well and never have a problem. Could be some folks have better noses than others?

    • jfmorris
      jfmorris commented
      Editing a comment
      I grill fish on the same grill I use for everything else - usually on the Genesis or the kettle. I’ve never smoked fish, but don’t see what it would do to your cooker as long as you clean it between cooks.

    #17
    I might suggest a Weber Summit Charcoal so you can cook like you have in past without cracking and a pellet grill for fish.

    Comment


    • Polarbear777
      Polarbear777 commented
      Editing a comment
      If it has the capacity profile you need I’d agree with this. It also has a built in fan intake port, so you can hook up your controller.

    #18
    You can put a controller fan on just about anything. I have one on my PBC and plenty of others have rigged for a WSM. girls like the pks also.

    Most will do set and forget overnight with a fan controller if there’s room for enough fuel. Barrel style should be no problem. You may need to apply gaskets to lids/doors to kill leaks and ensure good control.

    There are pics and threads on here about how to mod these.

    Calibration tests with no food to characterize settings. All using a level basket of KBB, and subset of that ignited by PBC chimney and lid clamped on immediately. I’m sure things will change with food load, but gives an idea how settings may affect things. Ambient temp was 30-40F. Altitude is sea level. Temperature at cook

    Comment


      #19
      Love the discussion!

      Couple quick thoughts:

      One, when you cook fish, you need to clean the smoker more often. The WSM is not an easy to clean unit. If I was going to smoke fish for just a couple people, I would want something easy to clean. For me, it's easy: I only use stickburners, and they are not that hard to clean.

      Two: How long of smokes do you want to do with fish? Most smokes are short on fish, so you don't need the long-term set and forget that a PSC or WSM etc provide. Heck, you could run a stickburner to smoke fish! Tend the fire a few times and you are done!

      Comment


        #20
        When we smoke salmon, it's not to eat it for dinner, it's to keep it for weeks or months (depending on how it's packaged and refrigerated). I've had very good success using both Traeger and RecTec pellet smokers at their lowest temp settings. That said, if you look at YouTube channels of West Coast/Alaska and Great Lakes salmon smokers, they almost always use a dedicated electric fish smoker because most seem to feel that 130-160° is pretty much an ideal temp for smoking fish, and it's very difficult to maintain that temp on other types of cookers. The majority of them I've seen, also recommend using a dedicated fish smoker if you're going to do it a lot.

        Comment


          #21
          I can't speak to smoking fish since I haven't done it, but I will throw my two cents in regard the WSM and the Pit Barrel since I have both and use them both regularly. I bought a Pit Barrel because I liked the idea of "set it and forget it". Unfortunately, that has not been the case with mine. It seems that no matter what method I use starting the fire I find myself having to babysit the smoker, and either stuff foil in the holes to cool it down, or crack the lid to warm it up. Frankly it's a pain in the a**. Having said that, it is still my go to for ribs if I have the time to watch it. You can't beat the flavor. For longer cooks I use my 22" WSM. I outfitted it with a Pit Viper fan and a Fireboard controller. Best money I ever spent. You can't put a price on good sleep. I can set it to 225 and it will hold it rock solid for 15+ hours. Plus it has plenty of capacity. I can easily smoke 6 pork shoulders at a time if I need to. If I had the money I would go with a vertical cabinet, but since I don't the WSM works well for a lot less money. If you're worried about heat loss, BBQ Guru sells a silicone jacket for the WSM for about 130 bucks. Anyway, good luck with your decision, you will get lots of good advice on this site. That's the thing I love the most about it.

          Comment


          • HandsomeDave
            HandsomeDave commented
            Editing a comment
            AZ Fogey that is a genius idea. I don't know why it didn't occur to me. Sometimes I amaze myself.

          • HandsomeDave
            HandsomeDave commented
            Editing a comment
            jfmorris Yep I am still around. Hope you have a lot of help with that wedding! Weddings are stressful enough without adding cooking for 200 on top of it.

          • jfmorris
            jfmorris commented
            Editing a comment
            HandsomeDave she has been recruiting people who will serve and keep the steam table trays full. The venue has a large kitchen with a large food warmer for holding steam table trays of food. My thoughts are to cook and pull pork (and chicken) in advance over the month or so leading up to the wedding, vacuum sealing it all and filling up the deep freeze. My challenge the weekend of the wedding will be getting it all thawed and warmed to serving temperatures and into the warmer before 5pm.

          #22
          I have a BGE and most of my overnight cooks are Boston Butts to serve at noon. I have had no trouble sleeping through the night while they cook. I start the fire at 7pm and stabilize the fire at 225, to put the meat on at 8. If the 9 or 10 pound butt is finished for 8am I wrap it and put it in an ice chest with old towels until I am ready to serve at noon. If it takes 14 hours I can still get 2 hours in the ice chest. I am putting one on tonight.

          Comment


            #23
            mug15 Bbqguru.com sells this adapter that should let your existing Guru fan work on the WSM:



            The way it is installs is dirt simple. Close two of the 3 bottom vents on the WSM. On the third, open it up wide, and install the guru adapter in one hole, and cover the other 2 holes in that vent with the included foil tape. A silicon kill plug is included to plug the adapter when not in use.

            This page has a video of how it installs on the WSM.

            View FAQ’s, troubleshooting tips, helpful articles and more.

            Last edited by jfmorris; November 15, 2019, 05:11 PM.

            Comment


              #24
              Again - I am blown away by the awesome number and quality of responses - thanks so much for making me confident about these decisions. I am likely to go with a dedicated electric for fish (as pointed out by AZ Fogey they can hold as low as 130).

              Last big Q for the gang here - I have never had a rotisserie. My guess is that a charcoal heat source (again I cannot get good wood here) > a rotisserie for a gasser but that my be way off base as you don't really need a lot of smoke flavor for most things you would rotisserie, so a smoke box in a gasser would be fine for something like a spit cook of a bone-in beef rib roast?

              Comment


                #25
                mug15 I have a rotisserie for my Weber Genesis II gas grill. I wish I had spent a little more and gotten it for my Weber kettle instead. My biggest reason is that the head space - the distance from spit to the grate and flavorizer bars that protect the burners is not big enough, and spinning anything bigger than a 5 pound chicken is impossible, much less a turkey. Other gas grills I’ve seen rotisserie setups on were better.

                Not so sure what gasser you have, but I don’t think smoke on rotisserie is as important as getting crisp skin and some mallard browning in your beef or pork.

                Comment

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