SmokeyTom

St. Louis spare ribs this weekend. I was really happy with my last effort but still some things I can improve on so really looking forward to it. Fingers crossed for the weather as you say. What cut of steak are you doing?

Link to thread showing the wings from this box smoked with magic dust rub: https://www.woodsmokeforum.uk/topic/4435-chicken-wings-with-magic-dust/ Tom

Nothing spectacular, but I've been smoking chicken wings 2-3 times a month recently. I'm finding them particularly more-ish with "magic dust" rub. (I really like rubs with Cumin) Takes about 1.5 hours on my offset at 135C. Here's my effort from Sunday, done with a mixed hardwood fire. I used yellow mustard initially to help the rub stick. Recipe for "Magic Dust": 4 parts Paprika 2 parts Salt 2 parts Brown sugar 1 parts Mustard powder 2 parts Chili powder 2 parts Cumin 1 parts Black pepper 2 parts Garlic granules Tom

Welcome. Make sure to send a pic of the TIE Bomber when it's finished!

I use my offset fairly frequently. I have an Oklahoma Joe Highland. It's a fairly popular model so there are plenty of YouTube vids of people using them. Lots of simple modifications you can make to squeeze more out of them too. (you will definitely want to get some high temp sealant and some stove door tape) In general the bigger and thicker the better (both for ease of control and longevity) but a Highland or anything about that size would be about right for your needs. Pictures below show overall size and how much real estate you get inside. I use a 1/3 gastropan for water and I've extended the stack down to grill level (using the old stack elbow from my last smoker)

Sounds like they probably took it down temporarily to alter the price, and that's when I was trying to look at it. The link's working for me now though so thanks. Tom

Nice looking snack

Did this thing sell out already because that link just takes me to the front page and I've search and it doesn't show up? Tom

Unfortunately I don't think I know anyone with a card but it's not something I have looked at in detail either. How do you get one? I guess they only serve businesses.

This post is a review of of the BBQ Ribs & Wings meat deal that The Village butchers do on their website. I thought about maybe combining this one with Injaredsworld's excellent post, but I was going to do a few followups as I cook the contents each week and I didn't want to take over the whole thread. I mentioned on my Roll Call post that I've taken up the challenge of cooking Sunday dinner on my offset every week for the whole year in order to get better at smoking (although I actually started in December!). The thing is, I need to keep the costs to a reasonable level, and I'm only really cooking for my wife and 5 year old son, particularly during lockdown. So cooking a monster brisket every week is not really an option. So I started looking around to see if there were any good box deals online that consisted of items that can be smoked and eaten in one dinner with only a few leftovers for lunches during the week, The issue with most online butchers is that their bulk deals often include a lot of steaks, burgers etc. for grilling and that wasn't really what I'm after. However I did stumble across the BBQ Wings and Ribs deal at The Village Butchers. I've bought and cooked this box twice now. For £52.99 you get: 1 x rack of St Louis spare ribs 1 x rack beef short ribs 1 x box chicken wings (I'd say 20 wings on average) The last two times I've ordered I've had a 10% off voucher code from them by email. So add in £5.49 postage and the total comes up as £53.19. Note that when I first ordered this back in December the deal was £49.99 so it's not quite as good as it once was. In general I get 5 Sunday dinners out of each box. That's one Sunday dinner for each rack of ribs, then wings three times, so I usually alternate wings and ribs each weekend. Each meal usually then has a few leftovers for me to eat a small barbecue lunch 1-2 times a week. Overall I would say that none of the individual parts I've bought are the best I've ever had, but the quality is acceptable for the price. If I just wanted any one of the pieces I would get better at the local butchers. I think some people may find the beef ribs are perhaps not a generous as they could be. If you're buying them separately they do either a 2kg or 3kg rack, in the Rib and Wing box you usually get something with 4 ribs at around 2.2kg. The longest I've had to wait for delivery is 4 days, so if you order early in the week you should have it by the weekend. This time it arrived in 2 days. I took some pictures so you can see what's in the box and how it's packaged: Everything is in a reflective insulated package in the box with a couple of ice packs. You get a notification when the delivery is out and it has always arrived fairly early in the morning (8am): Short ribs: St. Louis Spare Ribs: Chicken Wings: So far the quality has been fairly good and the price is OK so I'm happy. But nothing is stunning in my opinion. Has anyone else found a better deal if you BBQ frequently? I will probably stop back here each week with some pictures as I cook each piece. Best regards, Tom

Agree with Chae regarding online butchers. I've only really used The Village Butchers so far (since my local butchers is actually pretty good), but I've had decent beef short ribs, spare ribs (St. Louis cut), and chicken wings from them. Not tried them for Brisket though. I was a bit dubious shopping for meat online, and generally I prefer to use local shops if I can, but they've impressed me so far. There are plenty of others out there.

I know this isn't incredibly helpful but I think you're probably on the right track with the highland. I had a similar budget in mind when I bought my last smoker and ended up going with the highland and have been fairly happy with it. It needs sealing up a bit but its much better than my last smoker, a Landmann Grand Tennessee, which was somewhere in the £400 range when I got it, and isn't produced any more. The other good thing about the highland is it's a well known model and there's loads of videos on YouTube on how to cook with it or modify it to get the most out of it. Those are the only two offsets I've owned so that's all the advice I can give but you might be best off putting down a pre-order for the highland. Best regards, Tom

HI All, This question was what promoted me to join the forum: One issue I've not really found an ideal solution to yet is sourcing consistent firewood in decent quantities for running my stick burner. When I'm smoking on the offset I just run a pure wood fire with just a few briquettes at the beginning to get things started. Now I can get either wood chips or chunks from a single species very easily, but when it comes to getting decent sized splits in the UK the options seem a bit more limited. Generally I can't get firewood in a single species and in a large quantity. Most firewood I seem to be able to get in my area tends to be either mixed hardwood or mixed softwood. Obviously mixed softwood runs the risk of ending up with something sappy and is not an option. When it comes to mixed hardwood, as far as I'm aware there aren't really any UK species that are outright unsuitable for smoking, with the exception of sycamore. Everything else can be used and since I'm mostly cooking beef, pork and occasionally chicken, I seem to be able to get away with using mixed hardwood. I think probably the main risk is that I might end up with a batch of wood that is just too mild for the meat I'm smoking at the time. Most of the mixed hardwood seems to have a lot of mild stuff like birch, beech and alder. The only single species firewood I've seen about is sometimes local stores have small bags of pure birch wood. Not my first choice of species though, and it comes in small bags that will work out expensive if I'm frequently doing long cooks. It's also kiln-dried, which I try to avoid if possible as I find it a bit too dry. My current solution is a local firewood company that provides mixed oak/ash/beech/birch (no sycamore!), and you have the option to buy their barn-stored (ie. just air dried) stock that's supposed to have ~20% moisture. I got 0.75m^3 for £70, which probably saves a fortune in the long run, and I expect it to last me a while. Since firewood companies tend to have a limited delivery radius I'm guessing your options vary depending on where you live. In general I'm fairly happy with this solution and the effects of using a mixture of woods seems to average out over long cooks, but I'm just wondering if anyone has come up with anything better? Does anyone have a reliable source of non-kiln dried, seasoned oak in decent quantities? Cheers, Tom

Hi I'm Tom and I'm a BBQ/Smoking enthusiast from the county of Shropshire. I first got into general BBQ about 8 years ago thanks to a book my wife got me as a birthday present. Since then I've gradually drifted more and more towards American style smoking in an offset. I started off with a Landman Grand Tennessee, which I unfortunately did not take good enough care of and it rusted right through in the firebox after 7-8 years. I'm now on an Oklahoma Joe Highland, which is a much better smoker in my opinion even though it really does seem to need those sealing modifications to be effective. In the last year or so I've started to take BBQ a lot more seriously. My wife has always traditionally done us a Sunday roast every week, so this year I've taken the step of giving her Sundays off and committed to smoking something every Sunday without fail. Even if its just chicken wings, Sunday is BBQ day! I've been doing this for about three months now and it really helps. I don't seem to take many pics but I found the stuff below on my phone. Just a photo of my setup and a few things I've smoked recently. Thanks very much for letting me join your community! Best regards, Tom