Grilling

[Irish Insanity]

What are these typically made of? Is there a specific forum or place you go to learn proper dimensions to build something like that?

I frequent a place called Smoking Meat Forums. If you search, they have topics on dimensions and calculations.

 

[ACamp1900]

If you are asking me... I looked up a few pictures, watched a couple of episodes of Man, Fire, Food and just built one with the cheapest materials I could find that were safe to cook with... lol

I named my smoker "The Beast' but now that I think about it I should re name it, "Old Dirty Bastard"

 

[Irish Insanity]

ACamp,

Actually that was my initial thought. A UDS with a side box. It would be fairly simple to make. I want a side box for the ease of tending to the fuel source without messing with the food, and the opposite also.

 

[bkess8]

Alot of information here, hope it helps!

Smoker Builds

 

[Irish Insanity]

Alot of information here, hope it helps!

Smoker Builds

I actually belong to that forum and read it quite a bit.

 

[ACamp1900]

ACamp,

Actually that was initial thought. Aybe a UDS woth a side box. It would be fairly simple to make. I want a side box for the ease of tending to the fuel source without messing with the food, and the opposite also.

?

 

[Saint Shamrock]

New condo . Smoker had to go .

Welcome electric grill .

No smoking on that .

 

[Irish Insanity]

?

Ha, fixed. Damn auto correct on my phone/tapatalk. Not sure why those words came up in auto correct, but....

 

[ACamp1900]

Not gonna lie, had to google uds... Shame, shame... But yeah, that would be a good way to go I think, would you cut it in half and hinge it? Or create a door in the middle? Btw, 'tending to the fuel source while not messing with the food" proves you're smarter than me bc I tried to articulate that in many paragraphs and failed and you scored in one sentence... So that makes you the smartest guy on the board, congrats.

 

[Irish Insanity]

My PBC is very similar to a smaller UDS. That's the reason I went with it. I debated for a long time on building a UDS, but I just didn't have the ability at that time. The one thing I hate about a UDS, and my PBC, is that there is one chamber that holds the food and the fuel. If you're on a long smoke you better hope you have enough fuel in from the get go, you can't add any after the smoke starts.

I'd go one of two ways. Small fire box mounted to the side at the bottom of a drum. Then I would have one, or two, door cut in the drum. My worry there would be the grates would have to be permanently mounted in the drum. Being the drum is round, I just don't see a feasible way of mounting them otherwise. Or go complete build using the same basic design as the one I just went over, but building a square 'drum' for the food. Then I could use a few racks in the top 2/3 of the square drum, have a door or two, and allow them to slide out. That would also allow me to put a fluid bowl in the bottom of the square drum to keep moisture in the chamber. All while allowing all of the individual variables to be tended to individually without opening everything up.

 

[Irish Insanity]

Question for anyone who may know. I'm my designing of the smoker I thought it may be cool to possibly add an oven on the firebox. If I have a square firebox, and put an enclosure on the top with a door for access, do you think it would run hot enough? Or possibly one or two small dampers to allow, when desired, smoke to run up in to the oven. Maybe make pizza on a stone in it.

 

[GoldenDome]

Question for anyone who may know. I'm my designing of the smoker I thought it may be cool to possibly add an oven on the firebox. If I have a square firebox, and put an enclosure on the top with a door for access, do you think it would run hot enough? Or possibly one or two small dampers to allow, when desired, smoke to run up in to the oven. Maybe make pizza on a stone in it.

I think that may make it hard to control temps for the smoker itself. Ovens are made with radiant heat so the heat source needs to be from all areas unless you have a convection fan to evenly distribute heat. Having smoke run up to an "oven" is not really an oven but an additional smoker.

IMO, I would just use a weber kettle and add cement blocks to make a pizza as you can get the right temperature of a pizza without risking fluctuations in heat with your BBQ. Smoking brisket and smoking chicken even need different cook temps. For the most efficient smoke, you want to have that heat low and slow, whereas an oven temp would be high and fast.

Just my two cents. But if you are spending $$$ on meats for your BBQ, why risky temp fluctuations. My only solution may be to add a separate smoker box that would fuel the oven and add a convection fan to evenly distribute the heat.

 

[Irish Insanity]

My thought was to run the oven without smoking in the smoker at the same time. I figured I could control the temp by the intake vent on the fire box. I figured the metal top to the fire box could be the bottom of the oven with a pizza stone directly on it. The vents would be where I could shut them and open the vent to the smoker when smoking and reverse them when using the pizza oven. I figured possibly the top could be ran like a gas oven. But open and close the vents to get to the right temp. I figured with the firebox directly below, heating the oven bottom, direct adjustable vents leading to it, and a smaller area to the oven, that I could get the temps to 600 or higher. At this point it's all just made up in my head, I just wasn't sure I'd it would actually run right.
I have thought about convection fan idea as well. But at this point, I have no plans to run the smoker and oven together. That's the main reason I thought it would work.

 

[Irish Insanity]

In a vertical smoker is it safe to cook multiple kinds of meats shelved above each other. For example: brisket on top, butt in the middle, chicken on the bottom. Or will any of the drippings cross contaminate of they hit the other meat while one or both are still at a low temp.

 

[ACamp1900]

In a vertical smoker is it safe to cook multiple kinds of meats shelved above each other. For example: brisket on top, butt in the middle, chicken on the bottom. Or will any of the drippings cross contaminate of they hit the other meat while one or both are still at a low temp.

just put tin foil under each, that's what I do... after a number of hours I take all the juice that has built up and baste the meat with it... I have done Fish, Sausage, Ribs, Tri Tip and bird all in the same smoker at once before.... it's fine but I would recommend tin foil or those throw away tin trays...

 

[ACamp1900]

Quite an adventure in smoking today, making a huge batch of mixed greens and cornbread to go with:

Big rack of pork spare ribs
2 lbs of Jonah crab that I'll put in the smoker for ~ the last hour
Four lamb shanks I brined last night

Never have tried to last two in the smoker... We shall see...

 

[ACamp1900]

Went totally overboard with it too, it's only me, the wife and kids and my sister who is coming over to watch the UCLA game while playing settlers of catan...

I made far too much food, oh well.

 

[peoriairish]

Went totally overboard with it too, it's only me, the wife and kids and my sister who is coming over to watch the UCLA game while playing settlers of catan...

I made far too much food, oh well.

I do this all the time. It's just the wife and I so there's always leftover meat. That's why I love my vacuum sealer.

 

[Irish Insanity]

This is my first pretty free weekend so far this season. I'm planning on smoking both days. Get up, watch Game Day, start smoking, get a few things done around the house, then enjoy our game. Two questions.

Has anyone ever smoked a stuffed pineapple? Just saw a recipe and it looked great. It's my favorite fruit, but I don't know how smoking it would taste. The recipe I saw was for bacon wrapped pork stuffed pineapple.

Fatties? Who's smoked em? What was in it? I'm not a sausage fan so I'd prefer to stay with just beef. I've made a few, they were phenomenal. Just looking for other thoughts.

 

[ACamp1900]

I smoke hot links all the time, amazing...

the pineapple I have not tried but I'm a pineapple fan too so now I'm going to have to try it... please let me know how it works out.

 

[Veritate Duce Progredi]

I wouldn't mind some fatty recommendations either.

My son's birthday party is this weekend and I'm doing my 2nd brisket (my first was this past Saturday). My goodness the PBC can cook a mean brisket.

I salted 36 hrs before smoking. Then injected the night before with beef broth. Then applied the rub (Oklahoma Joe's ingredient list) and let it set 45 mins before throwing it on.

Once internal temps reached 160ish, I pulled the two cuts (point and flat) and wrapped them in foil and poured a half cup of beef broth in wiht them). Put them on the grates while my PBC cooled down from 300 - 240. Pulled them both at 203 and stuck them in the oven at 170 for 2.5 hrs and BAM. Delicious.

Some people may call those steps heretical but it turned out great so I'm doing another one this weekend but I'd love to serve a fatty with it.

 

[ACamp1900]

lol I'm a moron I thought you were asking about sausages... I've done stuffed chicken breast rolled in a 'fatty' like that, came out very good.

 

[Irish Insanity]

lol I'm a moron I thought you were asking about sausages... I've done stuffed chicken breast rolled in a 'fatty' like that, came out very good.

Fatty is typically ground beef and/or ground sausage rolled up with a mix ingredients stuffed in the middle and wrapped in bacon.
I'm just looking for anyone else who's made one and what they put in it. I've done a few. Mainly sauce and veggies. Just looking for other options.

VDP, I love my PBC. Glad I'm not the only one on here smoking with it. However, my brisket didn't come out well. I cooked only one section. I don't remember if it was the point or flat. I seasoned it overnight and let it ride all the way thru un foiled. It had great flavor, some juice would ooze when sliced, but was dry to the chew. I think I may have sliced it wrong too.

 

[ACamp1900]

Just my two cents on brisket.

I never understood why anyone would do brisket when they have access to tri tip... such a better cut, takes far less time to smoke, can be served in all the same ways but is typically juicier and less gamy. Unless you just grew up with the texture of brisket and insist on that then tri tip wins every single time imo... tri tip can be grilled too so it's much more versatile. For my tastes I have had about a dozen different 'award winning briskets' in texas... non compare to just average tri tip, Santa Maria style, Chimichurri style or just smoked with a basic rub.

 

[Irish Insanity]

Brisket is supposed to be the big boy. So I figured I'd been smoking long enough I'll give it a shot. They had tri tip but I passed. I'm assuming it would cook the same. My problem is I'm the only one in the house, or that I cook for, that will eat beef less than well done.

 

[wizards8507]

Just my two cents on brisket.

I never understood why anyone would do brisket when they have access to tri tip... such a better cut, takes far less time to smoke, can be served in all the same ways but is typically juicier and less gamy. Unless you just grew up with the texture of brisket and insist on that then tri tip wins every single time imo... tri tip can be grilled too so it's much more versatile. For my tastes I have had about a dozen different 'award winning briskets' in texas... non compare to just average tri tip, Santa Maria style, Chimichurri style or just smoked with a basic rub.

First, a brisket is way bigger than a tri tip. Second, the whole point of barbecue (and how it came to exist) is based on poor southerners cooking the cheapest cuts of meat to tender via "low and slow," rendering connective tissue into collagen.

 

[ACamp1900]

Size, not really... and I get the second part, but this isn't the 1860s anymore... and the history of it doesn't make brisket worth it when there is a much, MUCH better alternate for typically the same price. Basically, brisket sucks.

 

[wizards8507]

Size, not really... and I get the second part, but this isn't the 1860s anymore... and the history of it doesn't make brisket worth it when there is a much, MUCH better alternate for typically the same price. Basically, brisket sucks.

I haven't found it to be the case that brisket and tri tip are anywhere near the same price. Tri tip is delicious marinated and grilled medium rare so it seems wasteful to smoke it.

Unrelated: Smoke-grilled some Cornell chicken the other night. Turned out amazing.

Tonight was sausage and peppers. Not grilled, just delicious.

 

[Cackalacky]

I wouldn't mind some fatty recommendations either.

Some people may call those steps heretical but it turned out great so I'm doing another one this weekend but I'd love to serve a fatty with it.

I recommend a decent fatty of Black Indica or Hindu Kush to start but before the actual kid's birthday party. Once you bake that you should move on to actual food prep because you are gonna be hungrier than a mofo.

 

[ACamp1900]

Looks bomb!... Any kind of peppers, onions and sausage is always among my fav meals too... breakfast, lunch, dinner, doesn't matter... I usually fry my in a cast iron skillet though.

true on tri tip with grilling... I can attest that Santa Maria smoked tri tip is def worth it though... for sure. ON price, maybe I'm lucky? Tri Tip and brisket both go up and down in price much more noticeably than other meats but on average they run about the same price per pound, depending on the high or low of it Tri Tip is cheaper at times, at least at my spots.