Cooking on the Lone Star Grillz 20x36

[willxfmr]

I'm going to keep 2 threads, one for stuff about the cooker itself, and this one for the food it cooks. It will make it easier on my brain this way.

First cook was a simple one, burgers and bacon. If you don't cook your bacon on the smoker, you might want to give it a try. Of course if you're making your own bacon, you already know this.

Decided for no particular reason to use the upper rack for this cook. Four quarter pound burgers, and eight slices of bacon fit quite nicely on the upper rack.

The more times I fire this cooker up, the more excited I get about it. Reverse seared burgers are a staple food around my house, making it to the table at least twice a month. That was one of the reasons for making them the first cook on the LSG PP. I know without having to think about it how they taste off the Camp Chef PP, so the comparison is easy to make.

On the CC PP, I would usually go with a 250° setpoint, and run a smoke tube with Hickory chips. This gave me a reasonably short cook time, and a noticeable smoke flavor. On this cook, I ran the same 250° temp, but skipped the smoke tube. As it turns out, a smoke tube would have been total over kill. It's hard to compute this into actual numbers, but I would say the smoke profile from the LSG PP, is easily twice as intense as I got from the CC PP.


If this is any indication of what's to come, there is a lot of smoky goodness coming my way.

[Jerod Broussard]

Great pics!!

[FireMan]

Oh, you cheated & started early! Or, that was the early "seasoning" was it? Great lookin rig. Lookin forward to seein more……..of it.

[Redwng]

I have the same LSG 20x36 pellet (offset too) and you are right the smoke profile is much more than the Rec Tec I had for 7 years. I cooked a spatchcock chicken and was still getting smoke out of the stack when I had it set for 350, something unheard of for my Rec Tec. Good luck!

[Redwng]

I have the same LSG 20x36 pellet (offset too) and you are right the smoke profile is much more than the Rec Tec I had for 7 years. I cooked a spatchcock chicken and was still getting smoke out of the stack when I had it set for 350, something unheard of for my Rec Tec. Good luck and enjoy your new cooker!

[willxfmr]

I'm definitely still in the "new toy" stage with this cooker, but so far it is really impressing me.

[bbqLuv]

Good start, thanks for the pictures, Butt next?
Bad pun, never mind.

[texastweeter]

Burn a brisket in that bad boy

[willxfmr]

I have one sitting in the freezer just waiting it's turn.

[willxfmr]

Four pound Click chuckie on LSG. The chuckie got a 12 hour dry brine, and a healthy rub with Meatheads Red Meat blend. Rounded the meal out with some garlic mashed, steamed asparagus, and biscuits with plenty of honey and butter.




Weather was a little more comfortable, with an outdoor temp in the upper teens, and just a slight breeze for most of the cook. Once again, the LSG pooper didn't care about the weather. It came up to the setpoint of 250° quickly and had no trouble holding it. Pellets for this cook were Lumber Jack Supreme Blend.

Total cook time was just under nine hours to reach probe tender at an internal meat temp of 195°. Once off the smoker, I wrapped it up in butchers paper, and gave it a 2 hour rest in the oven set at 170°.


As you can see from the picture, the bark was well set and deep. Much better than what I would get from the old Camp Chef. The smoke profile was very pronounced, yet didn't have any of the bitterness that I would sometimes get if I went overboard with wood chips in the smoke tube. Each cook I do on this thing makes me like it just a little bit more.

Next up is chicken on a throne. That will be the first try at seeing how the LSG pooper does with a higher temp cook. But that is for another post.

[Sid P]

Lookin good!

[Jfrosty27]

Man you’re killing me. Although I love my Recteq, you’re making me want one of those real bad. But keep the updates coming.

[Steve B]

Glad to see you learning and enjoy that beast.
I thought about a pellet cooker for a while but as you have mentioned I wouldn’t get the smoke profile I would like.
BUT. This is starting my interest once again. Not in any immediate plans. However maybe down the line when I get too lazy to tend a fire all day.

[kenrobin]

I'm also keeping my eye on that LSG pellet smoker. I probably would have already had one if I didn't already own a MAK. If I ever see a used LSG (pellet, cabinet, offset, whatever) for sale on the West Coast, it's probably going to come home with me LOL

[willxfmr]

As promised the next cook on the LSG pooper was chicken on a throne. Still running Lumber Jack Supreme Blend pellets, and had no trouble hitting the set point of 350°, with incredibly warm outdoor temp of 35°. I'm so glad we are finally getting back to t-shirt weather.


This is my standard chicken cook that uses a beer can chicken rack without the beer can. I like doing them this way because it is easier than spatchcock, faster than laying it flat, and gets the dark and light meat done at the same time without overcooking either.

​​​​​If you own a pellet pooper, then you already know, that getting any amount of smoke at temps above 275° is darn near impossible without using a smoke tube or some other method to generate smoke. The lighting wasn't right for me to get a good shot of the smoke coming out of the stack, so I took this one during the mid cook check.


Yep. Even running 350°, the LSG pooper puts out the smoke. My only experience is with the LSG, and my Camp Chef DLX 24, so I'd like to hear from anyone running a MAK, Trager, Grilla, ect about your experience running higher temps. To me, this was incredible, but maybe to you it's not.

The chicken itself turned out really good. I used the chicken rub from The Shed (my all-time favorite chicken rub). What I didn't do, and it hurt the skin texture, was dry brine, or even really try to dry the skin before cooking. Of course this caused the skin to be nowhere near bite through crispy, but it was still good.
Corn and rice rounded things out.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

MAK used to put out pretty good smoke until about 350, but the new firmware you still get decent smoke past 450 now and it even smokes a little intermittently at 500+. I will say with my old MAK firmware I was fighting the battle of when to crank up the heat on poultry (especially wings) to get a balance of smoke and crispy skin. With the new firmware I just cook hotter sooner and still get very good smoke on my wings. I think a few manufacturers are figuring out how to get more smoke hotter

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

still would be cool to do a side by side with the LSG, MAK, and Yoder

[willxfmr]

@ItsAllGoneToTheDogs
I too would love to get those 3 side by side by side. glitchy is the closest one to me that I know has a MAK. Now we just need to find a Yoder and a time and place to get them all together. If we could add a Pitts and Spitts to the mix, so much the better.

[FireMan]

Oh geez, startling finished product! Sure beats biscuits.

[FireMan]

That cooker is a masterpiece. Look at those honkin wheels on it. Wilxfmr is one happy camper, as he should be.

[radiodome21]

I have a Grilla. I’m still trying to figure out chicken on it. I did thighs, wings, and drumsticks within the last 2 weeks. It’s the skin. I’m getting there but I’m not quite there yet. Family loves it but I just want it a little crispier.

[willxfmr]

What I found on my Camp Chef was if I dry brined, and let it sit in the fridge uncovered overnight, I could get nice crispy skin. The key is to get as much water out of the skin as you can before cooking.

[willxfmr]

Well I can say there has now been a prime full packer on my smoker. Due to time constraints, it got 5 hours of smoke, and then bagged and dropped in the 155° hot tub for 24 hours.



I ran 275° with Lumber Jack 100% Maple pellets for fuel. The 12 pound brisket got rubbed with a basic SPG mix, and made up to an IT of 160° before I had to pull it. If I had the option, I would have let it go another hour or two so the bark had more time to develope.


As it was, it still turned out pretty good with a nice smoke ring and a pronounced, but not overbearing smoke profile.



Like most brisket I make, the flat ran a little to the dry side, and the point was marvelous.

I've not really said much about how the LSG pooper preformed. The simple reason for that is I have said it enough already. This smoker performs very well. Steady temps, good smoke, and no fussing with rotating the meat because of hot spots.

Next benchmark test will be a pork butt left unattended for an overnight cook. But that's for another post.

[FireMan]

Yup, marvelous! 👍