Mince Pie

Thanks for answering, and the wee explanation how of each place works; it’s good to know these things 👍 Ill keep the Blantyre place in mind. Ayrshire is probably too far away, I’m in Linlithgow, West Lothian. If I come across anywhere, I’ll definitely let you know. My mates Dad is a butcher, I’ll get his take on full briskets and get back to you. I would recommend having a look at Gridiron meat, they’ve got good stuff and have a section just for BBQ.

Hi Justin, thanks a lot for getting back to me. I appreciate the pointers on the water and sand. It seemed to me to be a personal thing to those on YouTube if either is better, and I was expecting to be doing a bit trial and error to figure mine out. I like the easy low or high way you’ve explained, cheers. How long does a pan of water, or half, or what you use usually take to evaporate running at 250F/120C? Does that have a huge effect doing an overnight cook once it goes dry? Funny you mention the smartfire, I’ve spent quite a few hours in the last few days getting info on using the BBQ Guru. It looks brill idea. Do you not feel it’s taken away a bit of the process? Does it not make it a bit less....man cook on fire?! I think I’d feel I was not actually cooking and leaving something to plod away on automation?

How’s it going? Live central belt of Scotland. Have a non-branded off-set smoker from B&M (1mm thick, £60 job). Mostly used it the past couple of years for smoking home cured bacon, until lockdown when I ventured into doing 1-1.5 kg joints of topside, brisket and pork shoulder. Picked up the courage a few weeks ago to go all out and try a 5kg brisket. It went really well considering I was never away from the blasted fire box for 13 hours trying to keep on top of it. The flat was dry, and the point was drier than I would have liked, but I’ve learned a lot from it. (After watching T-Roy and other Yanks, I went for the internal temp rather than the pierce test. Once the probe went in like butter, I left it another hour to get another 10 degrees which was probably where it went wrong...still ate it though😊). Wife has bought me a 22” Weber smokey mountain for Christmas (ya beauty) so will be desperate to get out to do the burn in and tinkering/figuring it out on Christmas Day to do the first cook on Boxing Day of an 8kg pork shoulder already in the freezer waiting to go. Hoping to talk to like minded people (love smoked meat and enjoying the process of cooking the meat over the day with a cold drink in hand) and hopefully get pointers, suggestions and help to get me to the next stage in my learning. Maybe after a few years pass on things I might’ve learnt. Any WSM owners who could possibly give the WSM virgin (Me) any kind of tips are warmly welcomed. Would also love to hear about what briquettes are good, as I’ve previously used the cheapest I could find, recently moving to Weber brand, but find there’s a tainted chemical smell to them. Anyone living in Central Belt that can suggest local farm butchers doing brisket and pork belly would be greatly appreciated, not into the mass produced stuffs that land in supermarkets and local butchers. Thanks for taking the time to read my spiel and hope to have a blether with some of you soon. Cheers 👍🍻

Hullo Sammy, I’m glad to find there’s a few Jocks on here, spent ages googling for Scottish BBQ forums. Like your Drum Smoker! Brisket looks good too. I done my first brisket (went all out and done a full one) a few weeks ago which came out not bad but maybe a bit dry, got the pierce check bang on but temp was low after listening to the yanks on YouTube, so left it another hour and think that’s where I went wrong. Im wondering where you got your brisket from? I spent days trawling the internet for a local farm or butcher who would do local meat and not just the same stuff the supermarkets sell, and the best I came up with was a company in Yorkshire called Gridiron Meat. Their stuff is awesome and same price as butchers so was a win win, but didn’t tick the “local box”. Generally new to the smoking thing so not sure how this forum thing works, hope this isn’t the done thing asking questions like this 👍