That’s a fair criticism of my thoughts about the Smokey Mountain. I wasn’t aware that it could be that temperature stable over a long period. Still, there’s no learning curve on how to operate my setup. The big old LED display says what temp it’s going to hold, and what ramps I have programmed.
Really though, the biggest advantage I see that my setup has (and something that many/most won’t care about) is that I can smoke with or without heat or vice versa. And I can easily vary the amount of smoke, from a light touch to creating a low cloud in my neighborhood. The only thing I can’t do that I’d like is to be able to smoke in below ambient temperatures. I’d love to cold smoke in the 50-60 degree range but experiments with ice packs in the cabinet have mostly just led to gross condensation problems.
Maybe a water coil heat exchanger? Circulate chilled water in copper coils that the smoke passes through. That way, no moisture escapes in the heat exchange.
Yeah, with the sand pan, it stays fairly steady. That said, I don’t sweat the temperatures. As long as the inside is somewhere between about 215 and 275-ish, I’m good. Barbecue will still come out fine. I don’t usually monitor the internal temperature of my smoker at all. I did a few times maybe a decade back, and it stayed pretty steady to me, so that satisfied my curiosity.
That said, no, you can’t really do any cold smoke type things with this set-up. I have heard of people modifying it somehow with some duct work, I think, so the fire and smoke is generated in a firebox a distance away from the smoker, but, otherwise, I haven’t heard of any way to do it easily in an unmodified WSM. The people I knew who would cold smoke would do it in a shed. I’ve never done it by myself.
I’m not sure that would work. I want the smoke to stay warm enough that it still rises through the chamber. The issue is on, say, an 80 degree day, I want the entirety of the chamber to be like 60 degrees.
I don’t generally like low and slow chicken for this reason. The skin does always turn out a bit rubbery. You can finish over a grill – I do that with wings sometimes – I’ll smoke them for a bit at as low a temp as I can get on my WSM and then throw them on a hot grill to finish. That works well.
I don’t know the Masterbuilt smoker, but one problem I’ve had with the cheaper smokers is that they are inadequately vented. You need the smoke to leave the cooker via chimney or vent. It’s not supposed to just hang out and suffocate your meat, otherwise you just get a very sooty tasting end product. Airflow is very important in a good smoking set-up, and also the type of smoke you get affects your end product. You want wispy, bluish-smoke, not billowing white smoke like the kind you get when you initially ignite the wood. Too much of that kind of smoke and you get a creosote/soot flavor on your meat.
I remember on one of my first smokes on a cheap-o $50 Brinkman with very very poor ventilation, I smoked some ribs. My brother and I ate it, at first impressed with the soft, juicy texture and smokiness, but after about two or three bites, it literally felt like I had smoked half a pack of cigarettes (and I used to smoke quite a bit, so I knew the feeling.) As we were eating it, we tried to convince ourselves of the deliciousness, but the coughing and scratchy throats told us otherwise.
After that, I decided to get a WSM and all was well. I’m sure I can make that Brinkman do my bidding now with a few modifications now that I’ve learned the basic technique and theory of smoking, but it helped to learn on decent equipment.
Don’t get me wrong, I had a blast roasting the Thanksgiving goose in Boulder with almost 2 feet of snow on the ground. It was a ton of fun out there fiddling away. And the goose was cooked, came out pretty nicely, but I think it was a one time thing instead of an annual event.
Popping in quickly to recommend the Cookshack Smokette Elite, which I purchased several years ago and with which I am completely happy. It is made in Ponca City, Oklahoma, and is made to be the last smoker one ever buys. At $900 the price is steep, yes, but I’ve spent way more over the past 15 years on shoddy charcoal and electric smokers, and I really don’t think I’ll ever need to buy another one.
This model has an electric coil under a perforated metal plate on which you place wood chunks – after you set the temperature and place the meat in the smoker, you walk away and it just works. It easily holds a whole turkey, or a couple of pork butts.
It’s extremely well-made – there’s not a single component that doesn’t seem bulletproof – and after probably 20 uses in the last several years, I’ve never had a problem.
They occasionally offer free shipping (and are doing so now), which helps take the sting off of the initial high price.
If I ever had to buy another smoker (and, as I’ve written, I don’t think I will), I’d get another of these in a heartbeat.
I don’t know how I missed this thread last February but I’m a Weber charcoal fan. I’ve got a Smokey Mountain and and a kettle, both 18". The grates are the same which has come in handy a few times. As a single person household, I seldom need the capacity of the WSM but it’s a pleasure to use when I do. They seem to hold their used value pretty well on craigslist.
I use a foil wrapped terra cotta clay flower pot saucer from the garden section of the home improvement store in the water pan. My first few cooks were with water but it’s such a hot, greasy mess at the end and inconvenient to dispose of when cooled. It’s greasy enough that I don’t want to dump it down the drain or in the yard.
For charcoal, 100% lump and it’s not even close.
If the pit is charcoal, I can’t recommend this enough. I’ve met the author a number of times and he’s really passionate about cooking in general. If you can’t find something that looks tasty on his Instgram, I don’t know what to say. I, too, started with his website instructions before buying it (Amazon just reminded me that was back in early 2009). Lesson 1 is published free on his website.
The big question with most pellet smokers is how smoky you want your food. Pellet smokers are kind of like a wood fired oven, except more so. Your food will look great, and be somewhat smoky, but not nearly so smoky as a stick burning smoker or charcoal bullet smoker like the Weber Smoky Mountain.
Something about the necessity of burning the pellets for both heat and smoke means that they don’t quite produce the amount of smoke necessary to REALLY get something smoky.
I mentioned it in another thread but I guess I never came back and updated this one. I did end up getting a Webber Smokey Mountain, and I made some really good ribs in it.
