sotv

3 hours ago, JMoloney said:

Hi ya, 

I just got a pit barrel cooker, had a few cooks on it, which have been great overall.

Just wondering what coals do you use? 

Cheers

Hi & Welcome, nice to hear from a fellow owner. Might be picking your brains as not used mine yet, hoping to give it ago Tuesday or Wednesday. I will be using Restaurant Grade Lumpwood,  

Hoping it works out the box the same as the videos I have watched, not looking to mod except for perhaps a temp probe inlet and grommet and many say no real need to do any, but there are options if you like to tinker as Wade has pointed out. It doesn't seem right to just need to set the above sea height setting opening , light the charcoal and it settles around 280 +/ 20F after an initial spike for the duration of the cook without needing to do anything else. I've learnt to trust my grill, just need to believe in this and what it is advertised as able to do. 😄

Bought mine as although the food on my pellet grill is excellent it is so expensive to run for 6 hour+ cooks so hoping this will be a set and leave like the grill for those longer and messier cooks & cheaper than pellets that's for sure. Will likely use the pellet grill  for cooks less than 3 hours cooks and grilling and use this for lumps of meat, well that's the plan anyway.

Side of hake on a cedar plank and asparagus in butter in a skillet

7 hours ago, Icefever said:

Absolutely beautiful mate....my last lot is in the fridge drying ready for tomorrow smokin...

 

Ice.

Thanks Ice, the smell and the colour of the loin from the Beech dust and assume Sumac, smelt as good as any supermarket/butcher smoked back bacon I've had before and the taste was A1 as well

On 2/21/2021 at 12:51 PM, sotv said:

I was getting a little comfortable with making bacon and doing the same recipe every time, so decided to experiment by adding some Sumac and Bay leaves to see what they brings flavour wise to the bacon when done. Did a nice 2kg piece of loin with #1 cure, salt sugar, Telicherry Pepper, 2 tsps of Sumac and 4 bay leaves. Fingers crossed it works. The loin is a couple of inches thick so will leave for at least a fortnight to cure, before cold smoking

 

 

 

The Sumac has worked really well, lovely smell and adds a slightly citrus flavour to the bacon, and a peppery taste on the tongue.  Definitely will use again

After 2 weeks curing, washed the cure off under the tap and patted dry. Then smoked for  14 hours (2 mazes of Beech dust)  in the cabinet

Left in fridge for 48 hours to let smoke settle and sliced and vac packed. Cut a couple of bacon chops to cook on the grill and the tail end bits for using with pasta 

Ordered these from Amazon EU Smokey Olive Wood 6x 1500mL smoking dust: olive+beech, almond, orange, holm oak, lemon and walnut wood. Size Nº1: 0-1mm Haven't used them yet but looks really good quality dust. Comes from Amazon Eu took 72 hours and no duty or taxes applicable on it. Each pack give or take a little came in at 500g a pack so 3kg for £23.60 delivered represents really good value I thought based on what I have paid in the UK in the past

I would expect to get around 3-4 ProQ filled mazes out of each bag.

13 hours ago, markie_q said:

Looking forward to hearing how you get on. Would love one of these. 

Coming tomorrow (48 hour delivery) although ordered from JTF for £259 being supplied direct from Gardengiftshop who sell it themselves for £319 so well pleased with the £60 saving. Weather not looking brilliant till after the weekend, so will leave it till early next week probably. Stick with a chicken for the first cook as they're pretty forgiving for practicing with.

Always fancied ago at this type of cooking and seemed a good deal for one at £259. Hopefully not to steeper learning curve and as accustomed and happy to letting things cook themselves now, thanks to using a pellet grill. From what i have read about these once you've got them going these are quite similar in terms of use and produce decent food.

Tried some Top Sirloin and Homemade Chimichurri Kebabs with it today and a Sweetcorn cob

Liking this bit of kit, still new to me and slightly overcooked the top sirloin steak bites, but once again practice makes perfect, worked really well with the Chimichurri, can see me getting a lot of use out of it over the summer, especially using it in daylight, rather than pitch black and just above freezing outside.

1 minute ago, LeeJ said:

So I've been some smoking and curing my self with mine also. Used the ProQ Oak dust

Some lovely looking meats there, only done bacon and duck as cured meats so far to cold smoke, but if I can set something up to do other charcuterie type meats, will look to expand beyond, cheese, salmon and bacon in the future as this cabinet is easy to hang or smoke stuff on the shelves and produces a good finished level of smoke on the product, I'm finding.

Got the Weber beech dust on offer but nearly used it all up now, so will probably try out some other brands of dust next, but the beech produces a pretty good finished flavour

Side of Salmon just sliced up and packaged, using Weber Beech Dust. Very happy with this cabinet, preferring it to using the Bullet Smoker I used previously, fell there is a better airflow and produces a better finished smoke flavour to what I cold smoke, forms a good pellicle as well, this was in for 2 maze fulls (14 hours) 

On 2/25/2021 at 11:14 AM, Icefever said:

I've just ordered 2 for us...but I'm telling the SWMBO that you made me do it @sotv

 

Ice.

Turned out nice Honey & Soy Salmon with Asparagus and Baby Potatoes, 360F for 45 minutes to an IT of 145F, plank looked hardly used even with the messy glaze and 45 minutes of heat, well pleased with them. Going to order some more 😀

Both sides after use

I get all my shellfish from here https://berwickshellfish.com/ arrive really well packaged and a good selection of shellfish and fish available at prices not far off supermarkets but bigger and better quality

Also joined a site about I read about in The Guardian, last month, not tried them out for a delivery yet but it seems a good idea and with £25 free delivery to get fish delivered (whole or filleted) straight from the boat cutting out the middlemen seems a good idea to me. What they have on sale every evening and prices depends on what the boats have landed that day. But seem a good selection of flat fish available daily amongst other fish Just register on the site and they email you every evening about 8pm with what is on sale for that day with a link, you have to be quick though as they seem to sell out fast. https://peskyfish.co.uk/

For online meat orders as mentioned in OP I have used Gridiron as well as The Village Butchers and been happy with the meat and quality of service provided. But fortunately now found a really good butcher local to me who will get me any cut I want basically at really good prices, so happy about that.

Good video explaining the differences with the new Gen 2 Smokefire you might find helpful?

Just now, Icefever said:

We have an Instapot, did chicken & rice last week, turned out brilliant...we mostly do our apple sauce in a pan on the hob though....

 

Ice.

It's a great bit of kit, I use it so much, got the airfryer version, as you say rice dishes in it are just amazing really recommend this recipe if you like egg fried rice, lovely served with lemon chicken or duck in orange sauce. I even make my own cakes now 😀. Doing some bone broth and fish stock over the next 2 days, takes just over an hour instead of nearly a day in some cases in the slow cooker or on the hob.

5 minutes ago, Icefever said:

We always have apple sauce with pork, it's written in stone around here..😆.

I'm cooking a loin joint today on the ProQ... but will keep it as a Sunday roast...with Fontant pots along with apple sauce.....never thought about doing the vinegar sauce will try that one..

 

Ice.

Yes we do with a Sunday roast, but can't believe never thought to put it on top of a hot pulled pork cob before. have to say the pressure cooker way of doing it makes it so easy as well.

Be interested in anymore homemade vinegar sauces people have tried, as I liked the sharpness it bought to the pork tbh

Did a pork shoulder yesterday and my wife said she would like to try apple sauce on her pulled pork, never done it before with apple sauce & it works really well unsurprisingly and easy enough to make your own and is just delicious. I normally mix in just the pork juices back into the pork from letting it rest after pulling and serve it with a coleslaw but thought I would try this easy to make vinegar sauce for it as well and once again it tasted pretty good.

The apple sauce I made in the Instant Pot which allowed me to pressure cook it but no reason it couldn't be made in slow cooker or over the hob allowing more time for the apples to soften. After doing some reading it seems not just one variety of apple works best but a mixture of sweet and tart apples.

I used

2 Golden Delicious, 2 Granny Smiths & 1 Pink Lady Apple

3/4 Cup Of Water

1 tbsp Lemon Juice

1 tbsp of Sugar

Pressure cooked it for 8 minutes and allowed natural release. If doing in saucepan or slow cooker just cook them down to baby food type consistency, give it a quick press with potato masher is you still like a few lumps in it or stick it in the blender once cooled if you like it really smooth.

It can then either be served cold or reheated to serve with the pulled pork if it has been made beforehand

It makes quite a bit even with just five apples, plenty for the 8 cobs I did and enough leftover to freeze or make an apple crumble as we have, if I'd thought about it could have done the crumble on the smoker alongside the pulled pork, but next time will.

Vinegar Sauce

• 200ml apple cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon ketchup
• ½ tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
• 1 teaspoon of ground pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt

Mix altogether in a saucepan, heat to boiling slowly, allow to cool and put in container in fridge for 24 hours, then reheat and pour over pulled pork,  

53 minutes ago, Jonboy said:

Thanks for the advice 

how do you find the smoke fire pellet grill had mixed reviews? 
thanks Jon 

I love my machine and it has opened so much more to outdoor cooking compared to my old bullet smoker for me. It undoubtedly had problems at launch this time last year (I experienced most of them) but had mine a year and if you bought one now they have really all been sorted out and with the regular app software and firmware updates it is running really well and this is how it should have been at launch really, you may find a few niggles but it has mechanical electronic and electrical parts and they're always subject to small problems along the way as with most things.. Put a piece of pork shoulder on 4 hours ago, haven't had to go out once to it since starting it up, just looked at the app on my phone a couple of times to make sure the temp is stable and how the IT of the meat is doing.

Some people may say that takes all the fun of outdoor cooking. But it's minus temp out there, I don't want to keep going out every hour messing with vents, topping up water pan and putting wood and coals on and I also have shopping to do this morning and football to watch this afternoon 😃 Except for spritzing, I can do everything from my phone if I want to for this cook, it'll warn me from the temperature alert I set when it has reached an IT of 210F or any temp I wanted to set for this cook  if I wanted to wrap it at any stage etc.

The main thing though is Weber standby their product in my experience and any difficulties or faulty parts, Weber have replaced FOC no questions asked, just arrive on my doorstep 24-48 hours later. When you look at the masterbuilt and the shitty firebox falling to bits after a couple of months and basically told tough luck and no customer service interaction about it, I am so glad I want with the Weber. If you're spending that sort of money, Customer Service and how they deal with you is just as important as the product itself imho. 

If you have any specific questions or worries about the Smokefire  I, or maybe other Smokefire owners can help you with answers on here. There is a dedicated Smokefire thread on here that may help you answer some of your questions/worries also. As for the Summit Kamado, not seen anyone post any info on here about it, so you may need to look elsewhere for info on it.

If you have that sort of money to spend there are other brands of pellet grills out there that are meant to be very good as well, designed differently to the Smokefire but still reach 600F for searing steaks and have good firmware/software alongside the machine and have been at market longer than the Smokefire if you're particularly worried about owning a Smokefire .

Congratulations on your purchase. It's usually recommended on here to do a spatchcock chicken  first as it's cheap and forgiving and will allow you to get a feel for it, the vents, water pan and coals etc so you can maintain that even temp you're looking for as the Razzo is new to you, before attempting other things

Can't help you with a comparison as only own the Smokefire.  Have you thought about ringing Weber UK and asking if any of there BBQ courses use both machines so you can compare them in action before buying. The courses aren't cheap, but maybe mention that if you go to a course (if they do one), would they be willing to offer a discount if you attended a course and ended up buying one?

14 hours ago, JimBob said:

Hello there fellow EX bbq’er!

Yeah last week we still had -26c. That’s bit too much for bbq. Interested about the GBS  - you have some cast iron gear for that opening? If so, what exactly and how do you find them in use?

Only experienced cold like that once here back in the 80's. I was stationed at Shawbury and it reached around -27 From memory it was bone numbingly cold at that temp. Only -3 here this morning, but fired the Ex4 up at 6am and within 20 minutes it had reached 240F (expect it to maintain that for the full 12 hours no spiking or dipping) and hopefully 🤞 I'll have 3kg of pulled pork sometime in the next 12 hours and except for some spritzing and maybe a wrap if it stalls too long that will be it. I've got football to watch this afternoon and conifers to to cut back this morning, I don't want to keep worrying about fluctuating temps like I did with charcoal all day, I'm to old for that now 😃   

I have the cast iron sear plate for the GBS system, which produces nice sear marks on steaks and burgers at high temp the rest of the GBS stuff I have is Stainless or ceramic (poultry roaster and Ceramic pie dish) I use most of the cast iron (Lodge) on the grate system, I have a few skillets, dutch ovens, a pizza stone and plancha in cast iron and use them very regularly to cook all sort of things from, paellas, stews, deep fried chicken, fry ups, stir fry's Mexican foods allsorts really, probably do more of that style of cooking than lo&slo tbh

Also just bought the Weber Elevated Tier system for it to do skewers fits perfectly on the EX4, worth a look if you like kabobs etc.

I've said it before on here, from a personal point of view it's an expensive piece of kit and has had it's problems early on in launch (seems to have been sorted now though). But the versatility of it and the ability to cook in so many styles, I have been using it at least 2 or 3 times a week all year round in all sorts of weather. I personally love it and because the smoke flavour isn't as strong as charcoal, my wife is happy to eat the food all the time now as she found charcoal smoke off putting in the past and wasn't keen.

Hi Jimbob, welcome to the forum, you've had some kit there. Realise your winters are a lot more severer than what we experience, but managed to use my Ex4 at least once a week all through this winter and 3 times already this week, with pulled pork planned tomorrow and grilled salmon on a cedar plank Monday as well.

Except for cooking in driving rain (personal choice) cooked in temps at -6, snow, strong wind and showers and it has performed effortlessly (neighbours look at me a bit weird). Made me an all year round BBq'er for the first time and not just a fair weather one as find the GBS system accessories for the smokefire as well as cast iron cooking have opened a whole new world to me, than a hunk of meat on a bullet smoker that I used to do mainly.

57 minutes ago, Icefever said:

I've just ordered 2 for us...but I'm telling the SWMBO that you made me do it @sotv

 

Ice.

🤣 They're handy for grilling fish rather than sticking them straight on the grate. I'm sure Mrs Ice won't mind 

35 minutes ago, paul6057 said:

What pellet grill did you go for? I am intrigued by them and good to know they're versatile for grilling and low and slow.

I got the Weber Smokefire EX4 as it is an ideal size for the 2 of us and can do a whole brisket size wise if needed, if cooking for more. Towards the top range price wise for pellet grills, but there are other makes & models £2-300 cheaper. Can't see me ever going back to charcoal permanently, but I do like the look of the Weber Summit Kamado that has been released recently 😀

11 minutes ago, Icefever said:

I want to smoke cod.....most of what you see in the shops is dye coloured.

 

Ice.

Just ordered a couple of these Weber Cedar Planks (Part Number 17522) to do a side of salmon on my Pellet Grill @ £9.37 from Amazon with Prime, next cheapest delivered for these is £22.50 that I can see

Busy weekend Pulled pork and salmon on the grill 😀