Soon to be a Reverse Flow smoker...
Lol, Doug, just how many ways can you cook outdoors? I'm a fan of this type of thing.. In Fact, although I've never built any of them myself, I've got several outdoor cooking methods: my Bull Outdoor Products stainless steel gas grill, my stainless steel infra-red gas grill, my pellet grill, my kettle smoker, my Weber charcoal grill, my Big Chief smoker, maybe more, I forget sometimes! Lol. Oh yeah, my propane fired crab cooker (works great for oysters too)
How many ways can you cook outdoors? Several...lol...I just would like to cook using logs for the heat/smoke source. I still have a few questions about the "stack effect"...just have not sat down and asked them yet. More on this below....
Doug, Seeing all these postings about smoking different foods has really got me considering buying a smoker. I actually dragged the wife to look at some yesterday and she rolled her eyes at me. I think with a little more time, I may be able to convince her.
You want me to start talking to you on FB about it? :D
If she is like Ernie all it will take is one good cook off of a smoker and she will be hooked. This mornings breakfast consisted of some of my bacon, some of my smoked cheese and some smoked salt & pepper.
I have only been doing this for a short while so take the following for what it is worth. The electric smoker I got does a good job when combined with a few things.
This is the smoker...
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0048HU34Y/?tag=joeychgo-20
Masterbuilt makes a two different generation electric smokers. The Gen 1, the one I have has fewer problems than the Gen 2. The Gen 1 has the control panel on the back, and at least on the 40" unit the exhaust is on the top of the cabinet. Using the chips loader it has is a PITA....so you get a pellet burning contraption.....
http://www.amazenproducts.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=AMNPS5X8 and use pellets.
Lot of folks, myself included, hook a mailbox up to the smoker
View attachment mailbox.jpg
to avoid the chance of grease dripping onto it and causing a flare up. This also allows you to "cold smoke" with it....which will allow you to smoke cheese and butter....and if you are into fish this is apparently the way to prepare a lot of it. And from what I have read the way bacon should be done is by cold smoke.
Everything we have had from the electric smoker was very good. The Tri Tip roast I cooked in it was very good.....the best ribs I have ever made came out of it....until I used the Big Green Egg for ribs. Whole different story. Ribs were fall off the bone tender...on my first try. Not saying that with some practice the ribs out of the electric unit would not be this good but....
Lot of folks on a few of the smoking sites I am spending time on like the electric smokers. They are simple to operate. Don't require a ton of space. Have the ability to run great lengths, we had a pork butt and a chuck roast in ours to make tamales that took over 24 hours to smoke. Results are very repeatable. But there is just something about using wood chunks for a fuel that is just hard to beat. The ribs that came out of the electric unit had a visible smoke ring...at times the pellet burning contraption looked like an old small block Chevy on a cold start up. The ribs that came off of the Egg had a much more visible smoke ring...an no smoke was ever seen coming out of it.
All that being said...my curiosity lead me to the desire to build a Reverse Flow smoker. If the Eggs food is that favorable and juicy you just gotta wonder what stuff cooked over logs is going to be like...
Sorry for the length....
