Smoked Meat

[guids]

Offset fireboxes suck imo, because they are very tough to keep at a constant temp, and take a lot of trial an error, the direct heat charcoal smokers, such as the weber smoky mountain gives you the best of both worlds, charcoal/wood, and no fuss. You can amoke for 18 hours with little maintence once you get your charcoal amounts, and water options down. Check out the link I provided earlier in teh thread for the weber bullet, there are articles telling you exactly what to do (a few tell you exactly how many charcoals you need to light). Basically, with a full water pan, 1 chimney of lit, and one chimney of unlit on top of that, you can smoke for about 12 hours w/o any maintenance whatsoever.

[guids]

that looks awesome, Ive been looking for something to do pizza's in, I want at least 700 degrees for them and charcoal. You have gas or charcoal?

[hoksy]

I've smoke a wild canadian goose, whick I shot, on a large wood smoker. This was probably the most exotic meat I have smoked so far. I put it in a large tin pan which was filled one inch deep with cheap red wine. Cheap wine is awesome for cooking. I covered the goose in the pan with the wine and covered the whole thing with tin foil. Four hours later there was delicious meat to be had. The most suprising thing was that even though well done, because it was wild meat, the goose meat was a pinkish red, much like a ham.

I saw somebody mention duck. This will be tricky as birds have a tendency to dry out. I tried a wild pheasant once, another hunting trophy, and It came out dry. Using a pan, cover, and liquid seems to combat the dryness.

[Blarg]

I was thinking maybe ducks would be ideal because they're so fatty?

[JPinAZ]

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that looks awesome, Ive been looking for something to do pizza's in, I want at least 700 degrees for them and charcoal. You have gas or charcoal?

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It's charcoal. They do have an gas starter option, but that's only to start the charcoal. The Big Green Egg is similar (BGE copied the original Kamado design from the 60s) but the Kamado has a lot more mass. My K7 weighs around 500 pounds while the similar sized BGE is around 200.

[Klompy]

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I was thinking maybe ducks would be ideal because they're so fatty?

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This is what I think too, although hoksy is talking about wild duck, which tastes much different and isn't as fatty as store duck.

[rutang]

[ QUOTE ]
Offset fireboxes suck imo, because they are very tough to keep at a constant temp, and take a lot of trial an error, the direct heat charcoal smokers, such as the weber smoky mountain gives you the best of both worlds, charcoal/wood, and no fuss. You can amoke for 18 hours with little maintence once you get your charcoal amounts, and water options down. Check out the link I provided earlier in teh thread for the weber bullet, there are articles telling you exactly what to do (a few tell you exactly how many charcoals you need to light). Basically, with a full water pan, 1 chimney of lit, and one chimney of unlit on top of that, you can smoke for about 12 hours w/o any maintenance whatsoever.

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your points are all true, but the benefit of the offset firebox is that you never lose the heat in the chamber when stoking coals/replacing coals/replacing wood.

further, charcoal heat is harder to control than any of the other options, but when it's applying direct heat, has the ability to ruin the smoke more than anything else, especially for a beginner.

both types of charcoal smokers require additional maintenance to maintain proper temps, and while a firebox design will be more work to maintain, if simplicity is your priority I'd think you'd go with a different design altogether and sacrifice the charcoal flavor.

All that being said, I don't own the weber, but know plenty of fans who swear by it. I also have a great respect for weber grills in general, so I could buy into the weber you're describing being close to or superior to an indirect heat design.

I'm intrigued by this precursor to the B.G.E. I'm going to have to make an effort to see one in action, and taste the "fruits" of it's labor.

[guids]

can teh big green egg get up to 700 degree temps, does anyone know?


With the weber smoky mountain, the heat loss is minimal, i did a 22lb turkey for my first or 2nd smoke (see the el D thread BBQ), for superbowl, and it was abotu 20 degrees, I didnt have much trouble w/ temp control, other than keeping it keeping it warm. Ive used both, and the WSM is much better.

[rutang]

yes, the BGE has a sear capability of 700+.

[RunDownHouse]

Just curious, how do you cook with heat that high? Is it basically Pittsburghing it? Steak 30 sec a side, then into an oven for a few minutes? Or what?