We have to remember is the WSCG is a kamado. Rules of thumb with kamados: they don't need a water pan, they are very hard to do two zone cooking with, and they put less smoke on the food as they make less heat/smoke to hit a given temp than regular smokers.
The SnS might help some with the two zone but it won't help with the high humidity or the smoke production. At least I don't think it will... Perhaps I should buy a WSCG to test this out!
David Parrish , as much as I love my WSCG I'd hesitate to call it a true kamado. It just doesn't have the thermal mass of a ceramic cooker so it is much more subject to temp changes when you adjust airflow either by the vents, by variance in how the charcoal burns or by opening it to check on or move around the food. And I find I still need a water pan to keep humidity up in the cooker, not something you run across in a ceramic(so I'm told).
I think you need to buy one for experimental purposes, and write it off at the end of the year.
I'd be interested in what you think after cooking on it a while.
The dometic Avalanche coolers seem to be comparable to yeti at a lower cost. I work at a RV repair/parts store and can get a killer deal but even at retail prices they seem to be a better value
Started Low-N-Slow BBQ in 2012. Obviously, it's taken hold (in chronological order:
1.) A pair of Weber Smokey Mountain 22.5's
2.) #LilTex, a 22" Expensive Offset Smoker (looks like a Yoder Witicha)
3.) #WhoDat1, a HUGE Gravity Fed Insulated Cabinet Smoker (cooking chamber 3'x2'x6')
4.) A Full Size Commercial Dryer/converted to Vertical Smoker.
5.) Jambo Backyard stickburner (my FAVORITE Pit so far)
6.) GrillMeister, a huge 24"x48" Adjustable, Charcoal Grill from Pitmaker.com
7.) 22" Weber Kettle with Slow-N-Sear
8.) Vault insulated reverse-flow cabinet smoker from Pitmaker
9.) BarbecueFiretruck...under development
10.) 26 foot BBQ Vending Trailer equipped with HUGE Myron Mixon 72xc smoker is HERE, Oct 2016!
11.) Opened www.PaulsRibShackBarbecue.com Food Trailer officially in March 2017
12.) Austin Smoke Works 500 Gallon Propane Tank Offset Smoker, named "Lucille" as travel pit for PaulsRibShack, Oct 2018.
12.) Opening Brick & Mortar location at 4800 Nelson Rd, Spring 2019. Had a pair of 1,000 Gallon Austin Smoke Works pits, both in RibShackRed for our new place!
Fabulous Backlit Thermapens, several Maverick Remote Thermometers (don't use any remotes anymore), Thermoworks Smoke, Other Thermoworks toys, Vacuum sealer, lots and lots of equipment...
I'm loving using BBQ to make friends and build connections.
I have #theRibList where I keep a list of new and old friends and whenever I'm cooking, I make 1 to 20 extra and share the joy.
I cannot imagine cooking and sharing without a Cambro. I have 3 of theses. http://www.webstaurantstore.com/camb...4300MPCRD.html (I also have one of the flat ones, which I hardly ever use). Reasons I now find them indispensable:
1. They hold stuff in hotel pans. Since time is precious and washing hotel pans at the house in the sink adds even more BBQ stuff/clutter/noise inside the house, my new rhythm is to use foil pans and place them inside the hotel pan. The hotel pan is rigid and slides in and out on...
2. Cambro's have these built in slide out racks for hotel pans built it! The bottom set of guides only holds a shallow pan (2.5 inch), while the upper two guides hold shallow or deep pans. The picture below has pulled pork slices in the bottom pan (this was from about a year ago, and I've not practiced enough to get them like the competition guys do). Regular pulled/sliced in the middle pan, and St. Louis Ribs in the top pan.
2.a. If I haven't mentioned it yet, slide out pans and a front door are WAY EASIER than pulling out meats from a regular cooler. Another huge plus, is you don't have to wrap individual racks of ribs to store them in the cambro. I don't see how you could put 20 racks of ribs in a regular cooler, unwrapped, and not scrape off all that beautiful and flavorful bark in the process. So, I wrapped each rack in foil, then unwrapped at the party. Time, mess and such.
3. I can hold 3 full pans of meat in a Cambro. That's about 5 regular size briskets, or about 20 racks of St Louis cut Ribs, or a BUNCH of chicken legs.
4. If my cambro is not completely full, I can put my knives/tools in one of the racks.
5. I makes a great table to put your stuff while you are cutting up perfectly cooked BBQ meat at the friend's party you brought the food over to.
I brought the current sauce samples to this party a church - additional BBQ fun!
6. They make Excellent places to store your hotel pans when you aren't cooking. Store your foil pans in there as well, and any other BBQ stuff you want to.
7. They hold heat wonderfully, and do so in a moist environment so your proteins do not dry out. If you store in the oven for long, make sure you are totally wrapped sealed, so your moisture isn't leaking out.
8. This is 2nd kind of cool, of course, but you move further into the BBQ Guru zone with a cool piece of equipment like a cambro...And we all know that 2nd kind of cool stuff matters! (Definition: 1st kind of cool is how well something works, 2nd kind of cool is how much we like it.
I agree with Histrix, end use would be the deciding factor. If you're doing big cooks and serving lots of people the Cambro and hotel pans would be the way to go. But if you're just looking for a place to park the occasional brisket or couple of butts it would be 'way overkill and and would take up a fair amount of storage space.
As far as coolers go, if you use one a lot for camping and tailgating, the Yeti is probably the best on the market. If you're just going to use it for resting your cook a big towel and a cheapo styrofoam cooler work fine. And coolers can take up a LOT of space.
I bought a cambro recently. I just got it off kijiji. A guy was getting outta the catering business so I got it for a steal. You may want to keep an eye out for a deal on a used one.
I would LOVE to have a Yeti but I wouldn't buy one for resting meats. Any cheap cooler would do the trick. The problem I kept running into (as others have mentioned) is access. It's hard to reach stuff that's underneath stuff. lol. I also had a hard time fitting meats in pans in a regular cooler...and I prefer to use pans.
Just to reiterate what some of the others have said, I upgraded to a Cambro this summer (Actually a "Carlisle" which is a competitor to Cambro.) I have only used it a few times, but I'm SO happy with that set up so far. Everything fits (in pans) and there is plenty of room for hotel pans. As somebody mentioned, storing it is a pain (but no worse than a cooler.) Also, the lack of wheels and overall weight is something to think about.
A guy once told me "There are two types of bbq's. 1) The kind that think Cambros are too expensive and 2) The guy that USED TO think they were too expensive, bought it anyway, and wished he would have done it sooner." LOL. I don't know if that's true or not but I like mine and if you are already considering spending "yeti-dollars" on something, these aren't going to be a price issue.
Having said that, cheap coolers work very well when it comes to just keeping meat warm.
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