Who here owns a smoker?

Ribs came out okay. The larger one had a slight tug to it, but nothing to worry about. Just need some more cooks on the new smoker.

We'll see how jerky does tomorrow.

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Wild Turkey said:
Had to leave my grill with the old house so I’m in the market and considering this:


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I like that I can smoke but also just gas grill when I want a quick burger or something.
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I'm not a fan. It seems to combine the worst of both types of cooking, and costs $850 to boot. It's a motor-fed pellet smoker, which means more to break on the firebox AND you have to buy special fuel for that side. As for the propane, there's nothing wrong with it, except use by the other side means you'll be cleaning those surfaces more often.

In general, smoking & grilling should follow the KISS principle, and sometimes, I think that means two machines. The same amount of money will buy you a Kamado / Traeger and a decent propane grill.
 
Mofo said:
I'm not a fan. It seems to combine the worst of both types of cooking, and costs $850 to boot. It's a motor-fed pellet smoker, which means more to break on the firebox AND you have to buy special fuel for that side. As for the propane, there's nothing wrong with it, except use by the other side means you'll be cleaning those surfaces more often.

In general, smoking & grilling should follow the KISS principle, and sometimes, I think that means two machines. The same amount of money will buy you a Kamado / Traeger and a decent propane grill.
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I will add that I have had two Pit Boss vertical smokers and am not at all sold on their quality. First one died after about a year of periodic use. Current one I’ve had for about six months and it’s generally ok, but I’ve had a couple of times where it just - for lack of a better explanation - goes crazy. It just keeps feeding fuel to the burn chamber until the temperature pegs and it errors out. One time I was able to unplug it and let it cool down and it was fine. The other time it was jacked up all day, but a week later it was fine. Overall, not a fan.
 
Mofo said:
I'm not a fan. It seems to combine the worst of both types of cooking, and costs $850 to boot. It's a motor-fed pellet smoker, which means more to break on the firebox AND you have to buy special fuel for that side. As for the propane, there's nothing wrong with it, except use by the other side means you'll be cleaning those surfaces more often.

In general, smoking & grilling should follow the KISS principle, and sometimes, I think that means two machines. The same amount of money will buy you a Kamado / Traeger and a decent propane grill.
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I pulled the trigger but bought basically the same grill at Academy just without the side burner for $699. With my daughters military discount I got it $630 plus free assembly.

I can’t buy both for that price so we’ll see how it goes.
 
Wild Turkey said:
I pulled the trigger but bought basically the same grill at Academy just without the side burner for $699. With my daughters military discount I got it $630 plus free assembly.

I can’t buy both for that price so we’ll see how it goes.
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When will you break it in- weekend?
 
Mofo said:
When will you break it in- weekend?
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Maybe.

Have to get it level where I’m putting it and you have to do a dry run to season everything. With Father’s Day I might not get it all done but will be smoking soon.

I’ve got an educational curve to get overall as well. Lots of YouTube in my future.
 
Wild Turkey said:
Had to leave my grill with the old house so I’m in the market and considering this:


View attachment 102480
I like that I can smoke but also just gas grill when I want a quick burger or something.
Click to expand...
My wife's cousin had a regular Pit Boss. The pellets worked fine and fast for high temp cooking. The one thing that I don't like about pellet cookers in general is that they need a power source. One potential benefit of a grill is you have someplace to cook in case your power is out, and you lose that with a pellet hopper.

My brother-in-law has a combo charcoal smoker/grill and propane grill, and he hardly ever used the propane side, used the charcoal grill for regular grilling and recently went with a vertical smoker.

I think there might be like a 5-10 minute difference between being ready to cook with propane and being ready to cook with charcoal if you use a chimney starter. The biggest difference at this point is how evenly the heat distributes, which propane has an advantage.
 
I'm on my second Traeger and doubt I'll go any other direction in the future. They're pricey but the technology is great, the results are consistent, and the customer service is top notch (in the rare event you need them). I'm going on 3 years on my current one, and use it year round when I can, probably 2-3 times a week when the weather is nice. Tonight will be chicken thighs and broccolini, pork chops tomorrow.
 
Wild Turkey said:
Maybe.

Have to get it level where I’m putting it and you have to do a dry run to season everything. With Father’s Day I might not get it all done but will be smoking soon.

I’ve got an educational curve to get overall as well. Lots of YouTube in my future.
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Well, have fun. As I get older, I realize they're among the most practical and fun of my adult toys.
 
Guy Incognito said:
My wife's cousin had a regular Pit Boss. The pellets worked fine and fast for high temp cooking. The one thing that I don't like about pellet cookers in general is that they need a power source. One potential benefit of a grill is you have someplace to cook in case your power is out, and you lose that with a pellet hopper.

My brother-in-law has a combo charcoal smoker/grill and propane grill, and he hardly ever used the propane side, used the charcoal grill for regular grilling and recently went with a vertical smoker.

I think there might be like a 5-10 minute difference between being ready to cook with propane and being ready to cook with charcoal if you use a chimney starter. The biggest difference at this point is how evenly the heat distributes, which propane has an advantage.
Click to expand...
We'll see I like the idea of not having to smoke if I don't want to and have a cooking option with no power. I've got $700 bucks in this unit so if I get 4 years out of it I'm good and will upgrade.
 
Guy Incognito said:
My wife's cousin had a regular Pit Boss. The pellets worked fine and fast for high temp cooking. The one thing that I don't like about pellet cookers in general is that they need a power source. One potential benefit of a grill is you have someplace to cook in case your power is out, and you lose that with a pellet hopper.

My brother-in-law has a combo charcoal smoker/grill and propane grill, and he hardly ever used the propane side, used the charcoal grill for regular grilling and recently went with a vertical smoker.

I think there might be like a 5-10 minute difference between being ready to cook with propane and being ready to cook with charcoal if you use a chimney starter. The biggest difference at this point is how evenly the heat distributes, which propane has an advantage.
Click to expand...
Charcoal gives a better flavor.
 
Wild Turkey said:
We'll see I like the idea of not having to smoke if I don't want to and have a cooking option with no power. I've got $700 bucks in this unit so if I get 4 years out of it I'm good and will upgrade.
Click to expand...
I talked myself into a Pit Barrel Cooker a couple of years ago. I had an offset smoker that I liked but could cause me problems with long smokes (I once smoked a brisket for 13 hours and still had to put it in the oven for like 3 hours), so I would only use it for stuff I knew wouldn't take a long time to smoke, like ribs and chicken.

I kept that and just use it as a grill, and the Pit Barrel is my smoker. It cooks hotter, but I haven't noticed a major difference between something my brother-in-law smokes in his vertical vs. what I can cook in the Pit Barrel, and I can use it on a weeknight for smaller things like chicken legs, as those cook in like an hour as opposed to 1.5-2 hours I would have smoked them in my offset.

So I have two charcoal cookers, one as a smoker and one for regular grilling.
 
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