You can add wood chunks to get some extra flavor, apparently… I’m fine with charcoal, overall… I haven’t noticed a ton of flavor from the pellet grill.
I’ve mostly settled on the chargriller 980 for my next grill… but I’m also looking at the Taylor made mini driver… we shall see!
Trying to make pulled pork on my gas grill today with an Amaz’n Smoker Tube. It’s a tight fit in there! We’ll see how this goes.
I really should just buy a new smoker. But I spend all my extra money on golf!
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Looking good! Curious as to how it turns out… i was all set to buy the chargriller but it’s out of stock… hopefully Lowe’s gets more in soon.
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@Bigdadenergy you still sitting on an extra Traeger? Feel like you and jake could barter golf stuff for grill stuff.
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Haha I am, but that pork butt has some crazy good looking bark for being smoked with a tube in a gas grill. Luh-git.
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Yeah, that’s some good looking pork!
I’m still pretty sold on the gravity fed grill, but the one I want is out of stock… so I either need to buy the other brand (master built) or wait it out.
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Couple of other ideas for you guys. Gateway Drum smokers look really good. Our local store sells them and they have posted pics of the food they’ve churned out. They cook at 250-325, so are considered “hot and fast” smokers.
Also Pit Boss pellet grills look really solidly built and tend to run less expensive than Traeger, Green Mountain, etc.
As far as the bark goes on my pork butt, it was really good. I’ve learned that you can cook good barbeque on anything where you can relatively control the temperature of your heat source, and get 1-3 hours of good smoke.
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I tend to agree with you that you can smoke on anything if you can control the temperature and generate smoke… obviously you had some good success with propane, and that’s awesome…
I’ve written this elsewhere, but I’ll break it down here for fun.
What I personally want out of a grill: My ideal grill is one that can smoke and sear, is easy to quickly start up and shut down (and put away), has an easy to acquire fuel source and generates a good “grill” flavor.
Propane hits most of those goals, but I don’t think it adds “grill” flavor and propane itself is somewhat a pain (can be overcome by purchasing a second tank and just making sure you are replenishing the back up)…
My pellet grill definitely hit most of this, but didn’t get hot enough to sear, and frankly, I don’t like the engineering of it… The functional design of using an auger to drive pellets into an igniter simply isn’t great. They have made steady improvements to the system, but you are depending on multiple pieces to not fail in a hot enviroment, and their is no real recovery when the system does fail. If the hot box gets overloaded with pellets, my Traeger can’t burn through them… it simply shuts off until I clean out all the pellets. It’s also a pain to clean out the hot pot, as you have to remove a number of pieces… all of this has been updated with more modern design, but it’s problems getting worked around, not solved.
I don’t have the interest in actually maintaining a fire for 12+ hours. I respect the people who do, but if I have 12 free hours, I’d rather be playing golf. I like to eat BBQ, I’m less enamored with the making of it (at least from the fire tending side)… So I haven’t ever really considered a “real” BBQ setup. Stick burner or otherwise… maybe one day, when I master the seasoning and controlled cooking part I’ll dig into the smoke generation aspect…
The Ugly Drum Smoker (basically a 53 gallon drum converted into a grill) is pretty legendary on the BBQ cooking forums for it’s ability to hold a temperature and being relatively idiot proof… it would likely be what I went with if I ever wanted to get into real smoking…
The simple kettle drum from Weber is still a popular grill for a very good reason… it’s good at what it does and it does it well… I have a cast iron “big green egg” type grill, and I never used it… fussing with charcoal and then getting the grill shut down and cooled off to put away was always a hurdle for me using it. This is pure laziness on my part, but it’s my grill, so I can be lazy.
Gravity Fed Smoker: I haven’t bought mine yet, but I’m planning on it… It SEEMS to tick off all my boxes, being fed by charcoal, it gets up to 700 degrees, holds temperature for long periods of time, and SHOULD add some smoky goodness to whatever I’m cooking. They are popular on the competitive circuit (though the design is different) and there are now 2 gravity fed “grills” on the market… MasterBuilt and CharGriller. Both seem to have fairly positive reviews, and the engineering of them makes sense to me… Fill a tube with charcoal, and limit the oxygen. Ash falls down and fresh charcoal is exposed to the heat and air and burns… I’m really excited to try one, and all set to buy it once Lowe’s restocks the CharGriller 980. (I could get the MasterBuilt, but I prefer the CharGriller).
I think it will work best for me, but who knows!
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Tritip….my first beef smoke. Pulled off the smoker at 135, then reverse seared on the propane grill to 145. I love this new hobby.
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I’ve had three gas grills in the last year. Two of them blew away in Hurricane Sally; my Frigidaire grill blew about thirty yards and rolled a number of times in the process… destroyed. My Walmart Chinese hundred dollar grill blew away and was never seen again.
Then I bought a mid-size Weber that’s built like a tank. It blew about thirty yards (same place as the Frigidaire the year before) during Tropical Storm Claudette last month, but all the parts are steel and I banged them all out again with a rubber mallet. The next time we’re under a storm Warning I’m gonna lay the Weber on its side (without the propane tank, of course).
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Honestly, the only real misfire I’ve ever seen from Weber was their pellet grill… apparently the first iteration was mediocre… their charcoal and gas grills are monsters… Sounds like you have a plan to keep yours safe!
I’m hopefully going to order my CharGriller 980 next week and have it here when I get home from Idaho… I have lots of BBQ plans with it… I’ve been watching too many YouTube BBQ videos… Mad Scientist is my current go to.
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Then he can say “my outdoor kitchen blew away in the hurricane”!
I do really want to build a space for my next grill…
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We had 90mph winds last week and it held up like a champ. Can’t say I wasn’t worried, though.
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Got home today and this was in a box… giving it an inaugural run right now… thus far (after some mistakes on my part) it’s pretty awesome.
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Oh wow, Good luck with that new toy! Looks like the SIM of smokers. That’s a 300 yard driver down the middle ! What are you christening it on the maiden voyage?
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Kept it simple, sausage, vegetables and corn… it worked well!
Steak tonight. Whole roast chicken tomorrow.
Long smoke is planned, but not sure when… I’ll start with a pork shoulder.
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Bacon-wrapped smoked brats from the Traeger tonight…so juicy and smokey…absolutely one of my favorite smokes so far.
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