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***Official Grilling and Smoking Thread*** (2 Viewers)

Cowboysfan8 said:
Mine stays hooked up (and used) to my grill year around

Eta: didn't see the part about not using it for months. I guess if I wasn't going to use it for months I'd put it in my garage but it's not necessary
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Not gonna put it in my garage, as that's connected to the house. Don't want any chance at an explosion. Shed in the backyard is where it will go if I do disconnect it from the grill. 

 
Did a rack of baby backs and a couple of chicken breast yesterday. Big mistake. I'm now sick as a dog. My voice is almost gone. It was cold and windy all day but I didn't let that stop me. However the food was amazing. 

 
In The Zone said:
Did a rack of baby backs and a couple of chicken breast yesterday. Big mistake. I'm now sick as a dog. My voice is almost gone. It was cold and windy all day but I didn't let that stop me. However the food was amazing. 
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I just heard of some research on the radio this morning that claims that men actually do get hit worse by the flu than women.

#manflu - not that feeble lady-flu...

 
MikeIke said:
Not gonna put it in my garage, as that's connected to the house. Don't want any chance at an explosion. Shed in the backyard is where it will go if I do disconnect it from the grill. 
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Do you store your candles 100 ft from your house too?  Keep it in the garage or keep it on the grill and use it all winter like the rest of us. 

 
Somehow I've never posted in this thread.   :unsure:

I grill a few times a week on a Weber propane grill (just so fast and easy).  Have GrillGrates, those things are $$$.  

Also have a very cheap smoker, but haven't used it in a while.  Looking to get a new smoker, maybe for Christmas.  Looking at either the barrel one or the Weber Bullet. 

I love to cook, but rarely entertain.  Mostly just the wife and I for dinner, her cholesterol is borderline high so have to add more chicken to the mix and cut back on the red meat.   :rant:

Do I have to perform some type of initiation?  

 
Poke_4_Life said:
Somehow I've never posted in this thread.   :unsure:

I grill a few times a week on a Weber propane grill (just so fast and easy).  Have GrillGrates, those things are $$$.  

Also have a very cheap smoker, but haven't used it in a while.  Looking to get a new smoker, maybe for Christmas.  Looking at either the barrel one or the Weber Bullet. 

I love to cook, but rarely entertain.  Mostly just the wife and I for dinner, her cholesterol is borderline high so have to add more chicken to the mix and cut back on the red meat.   :rant:

Do I have to perform some type of initiation?  
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You just did. Welcome to the thread

 
msommer said:
I just heard of some research on the radio this morning that claims that men actually do get hit worse by the flu than women.

#manflu - not that feeble lady-flu...
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I'm feeling a little better this morning but my voice is still scratchy at best. Not that this means anything but I had a flu shot a month ago. 

 
Poke_4_Life said:
Somehow I've never posted in this thread.   :unsure:

I grill a few times a week on a Weber propane grill (just so fast and easy).  Have GrillGrates, those things are $$$.  

Also have a very cheap smoker, but haven't used it in a while.  Looking to get a new smoker, maybe for Christmas.  Looking at either the barrel one or the Weber Bullet. 

I love to cook, but rarely entertain.  Mostly just the wife and I for dinner, her cholesterol is borderline high so have to add more chicken to the mix and cut back on the red meat.   :rant:

Do I have to perform some type of initiation?  
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Yes, welcome. You sound similar to me as my wife is also borderline high cholesterol and just started a 13 week stretch of no red meat. Her only cheat days will be on our trip to Vegas. I have a Weber Smokey Mountain and love it. It's pretty easy to use and once you get it dialed in it can hold temperatures  for hours. However, you can't beat the flavor of the food off of an offset but it is more work. 

 
In The Zone said:
Yes, welcome. You sound similar to me as my wife is also borderline high cholesterol and just started a 13 week stretch of no red meat. Her only cheat days will be on our trip to Vegas. I have a Weber Smokey Mountain and love it. It's pretty easy to use and once you get it dialed in it can hold temperatures  for hours. However, you can't beat the flavor of the food off of an offset but it is more work. 
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This is what I'm considering.

Anyone use GrillGrates?  I highly recommend them to take your cheap grill game up a level.  No flare ups and very high heat for searing.  

 
Pecan smells the best when cooking.  I usually go Apple for most things.  Gotta try peach and pear.  Hickory is OK, but jeez does a little go a long way. 

 
I have had great luck with plum myself.  I had a plum tree get uprooted in a storm years ago so I chunked up the wood and have been using it for a long time.  I am almost out though.

We had some work done on our red maples last week so I saved some of that wood.  Has anyone tried maple when smoking?

 
The other day I smoked a small piece of brisket and when it was done resting, I chopped it up.

I then shredded two baking potatoes and dried them out good.

In an oiled frying pan I put one layer of shredded potatoes, one layer of shredded colby jack cheese, then the chunked up brisket, and topped it with another layer of potatoes, and then cooked it all up like hash browns (about 15 minutes a side).

It came out great and a nice way to re-purpose meat and potatoes.

 
Would crabapple be similar to apple? I've got a flowering crab in the side yard that's in a bad spot and should come out.  It's not real big but I could probably get a few smokes out of it.

 
NewlyRetired said:
I have had great luck with plum myself.  I had a plum tree get uprooted in a storm years ago so I chunked up the wood and have been using it for a long time.  I am almost out though.

We had some work done on our red maples last week so I saved some of that wood.  Has anyone tried maple when smoking?
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Love me some maple.

Time to share some smoke wood knowledge. The most extensive list of smoke woods (and what they pair well with) that I've been able to find (and write)

 
heckmanm said:
Would crabapple be similar to apple? I've got a flowering crab in the side yard that's in a bad spot and should come out.  It's not real big but I could probably get a few smokes out of it.
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Ornamental fruit trees are almost identical to the regular fruit bearing trees. Crabapple, Double Blossom Cherry, and even Bradford and Cleveland Pear trees produce wood and smoke almost the same as their apple, cherry and pear counterparts. 

 
TheFanatic said:
Ornamental fruit trees are almost identical to the regular fruit bearing trees. Crabapple, Double Blossom Cherry, and even Bradford and Cleveland Pear trees produce wood and smoke almost the same as their apple, cherry and pear counterparts. 
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Nice.  One more reason to get rid of it (in addition to it being a PITA to mow around/under).

 
Where are you guys getting all this wood?  I've strictly been using hickory (with some apple) for years.

 
shuke said:
Where are you guys getting all this wood?  I've strictly been using hickory (with some apple) for years.
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Check the big chain hardware stores or any outdoor recreation-type store where you can buy a grill — they probably won’t be carrying more exotic stuff like plum and pear, but they should have a nice variety of the typical stuff in both chunks and chips.

 
Coeur de Lion said:
Check the big chain hardware stores or any outdoor recreation-type store where you can buy a grill — they probably won’t be carrying more exotic stuff like plum and pear, but they should have a nice variety of the typical stuff in both chunks and chips.
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This, and you can sometimes get decent deals on Amazon.  Prices can fluctuate, but you can find the bags of chunks for < $10.  (Although not every type of wood all the time.  Right now I saw cherry for about $8 but apple was $20.) 

 
Also, not sure if already linked, but these are pretty nice for storing charcoal and wood chunks.  Lowe's has them WAY cheaper than Amazon.

 
shuke said:
Where are you guys getting all this wood?  I've strictly been using hickory (with some apple) for years.
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Check out this guy. Best smokewood I've ever seen or used. Put a chunk of anything he sells next to anything you get off the shelf and the difference is startling. Just do a side by side comparison. His stuff is so clean and perfect. And he studied for months exactly how long he should dry the stuff to get the perfect amount of smoke. 

 
heckmanm said:
You may not.  I have limited storage near my smoker, and these are watertight and let me keep wood & charcoal handy without getting my other gear all charcoal-dusty.
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My dad uses one of those. 

 
@TheFanatic

Picked up a 18" weber smokey mountain and just started poking around your website. Is there a smoking for dummies section or a few beginner articles you can point me towards. I think I kinda know what to do, but I'm guessing I'm at least half wrong. Love to cook (we use our propane grill at least once a week), but never smoked before. 

TIA

 
odin33 said:
@TheFanatic

Picked up a 18" weber smokey mountain and just started poking around your website. Is there a smoking for dummies section or a few beginner articles you can point me towards. I think I kinda know what to do, but I'm guessing I'm at least half wrong. Love to cook (we use our propane grill at least once a week), but never smoked before. 

TIA
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Welcome to the club!

Get your feet wet with a pork shoulder. Easy to smoke and almost impossible to screw up.

 
Doing my first brisket (9 lb flat from Costco) on the Egg tomorrow. Pretty sure I did one years ago on my WSM and remember is kind of sucking, not sure though. Regardless, it may as well be my first one. I ordered some butcher paper via Amazon yesterday around 3pm, arrived at my house before noon. Lots to hate about this world but that's awesome. So butcher paper is part of the plan. And I think I'm just salt and peppering the heck out of it before it goes on. I need to read up on temps/time/when to wrap etc. and get the rest of the plan sorted.

 
ChiefD said:
Welcome to the club!

Get your feet wet with a pork shoulder. Easy to smoke and almost impossible to screw up.
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Thanks, looking forward to it. Anyone with a WSM have any mods or add-ons they recommend? Thought I read the rib rack wasn't worth it.

I've been lurking for awhile and picked up pork shoulder was the first one up. Should go great with those fries. :) (Side note, picked up a french fry maker (big cast iron one) on the cheap. Makes a HUGE difference. worth the investment). One neighbor is still raving about the ones from 4th of July when I tried your recipe for the first time.

It's the whole, how much charcoal, lump or briquettes (I know it matters but how much), how much wood and when to add, open vents equals hotter and quicker burn, but dialing in how much each plays in. What about the top vent, when to add more fuel (temp drops 2 degrees, or 5 or 10). 

All things I will learn,  just looking for soem guide posts, and the your a dumb@$$ if you... lists.

 
odin33 said:
@TheFanatic

Picked up a 18" weber smokey mountain and just started poking around your website. Is there a smoking for dummies section or a few beginner articles you can point me towards. I think I kinda know what to do, but I'm guessing I'm at least half wrong. Love to cook (we use our propane grill at least once a week), but never smoked before. 

TIA
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While the fanatic's site is great I have found the Virtual Weber Bullet to be great for beginners.

 
Hawks64 said:
While the fanatic's site is great I have found the Virtual Weber Bullet to be great for beginners.
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While the owner of that site is an ###, it does have a lot of great info. And I've never had a WSM so I don't have anything on my site using one. 

That being said, every grill takes a bit to get used to whether my American Muscle Grill or an 18 inch WSM. Load it up with coals, cut the vent openings in half and come back in 30 minutes and check the temp. Cut them to a quarter and come back in 30 and check the temp. Open them up to all the way and check that. It will take a few cooks to get used to the vent controls. Stick to pork shoulders and ribs at first. Don't do a brisket until you can pin the temp at 250 for many hours. 

Also keep in mind that outside weather can have an impact. Cold, blustery days will cause the cooker to act different than on hot, humid days. 

In the end, the key here is practice. I think Arnold Palmer said, "Do you know how to become a great golfer? You hit thousands upon thousands of golf balls." And think about it. Practicing on the grill is better than just about anything you can do!

 
Thanks @Hawks64 , thumbing through the site now.

@TheFanatic the vents 50, 25, 100.Thanks for the tip- wouldn't have thought to run empty and get baseline results on temps and swings, then it's a matter of data points with amounts of meats and their effect on the swings. I like it.  :thumbup:

After the dry run, could I try this over the first hour or so of a pork shoulder and not ruin the meat? Thought being getting temp swing info on a 5 lb. forgiving piece of meat early in the cooking process (for the data points) knowing it'll be on there for a good long time to hopefully save any transgressions.

Leave it to a FF forum to be the go to source. Time to check the Disney, yoga pants threads. 

 
odin33 said:
Thanks @Hawks64 , thumbing through the site now.

@TheFanatic the vents 50, 25, 100.Thanks for the tip- wouldn't have thought to run empty and get baseline results on temps and swings, then it's a matter of data points with amounts of meats and their effect on the swings. I like it.  :thumbup:

After the dry run, could I try this over the first hour or so of a pork shoulder and not ruin the meat? Thought being getting temp swing info on a 5 lb. forgiving piece of meat early in the cooking process (for the data points) knowing it'll be on there for a good long time to hopefully save any transgressions.

Leave it to a FF forum to be the go to source. Time to check the Disney, yoga pants threads. 
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The dry run is to find how open the vents need to be to stick 200, 225, 250, 275, 300, or whatever is your temp of choice. Once you get an idea of what that is and how to get there, drop your shoulder in the cooker and have a blast. If it drops more than a few degrees, play with the vents a little. 

Make sure you get a good probe thermometer. I would say that the probe thermometer is the most important piece of equipment beyond even the cooker. Doesn't matter what grill I use, I always use a thermometer. 

 
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odin33 said:
After the dry run, could I try this over the first hour or so of a pork shoulder and not ruin the meat? Thought being getting temp swing info on a 5 lb. forgiving piece of meat early in the cooking process (for the data points) knowing it'll be on there for a good long time to hopefully save any transgressions.
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You really can't ruin a pork shoulder. It has so much fat running through it that the end product will be nice and juicy.

For a first smoke, especially with the pork shoulder, I would use something like apple wood. It's good and mild and will put a nice base layer of smoke in your smoker. 

 
TheFanatic said:
The dry run is to find how open the vents need to be to stick 200, 225, 250, 275, 300, or whatever is your temp of choice. Once you get an idea of what that is and how to get there, drop your shoulder in the cooker and have a blast. If it drops more than a few degrees, play with the vents a little. 

Make sure you get a good probe thermometer. I would say that the probe thermometer is the most important piece of equipment beyond even the cooker. Doesn't matter what grill I use, I always use a thermometer. 
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Hoping this will do  at least for starters. Got this a few years back as a gift when I was toying with the idea of smoking back then.

 
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