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I own the Weber Smokefire and as it is the first pellet grill I have owned can't compare it to any other model unfortunately. The problem with high priced smoker/grills is even though your spending over £1000 you never get to see them in action in a store or showroom first. The only way you can is if you buy one of the courses some of the manufacturers offer to the public. If you decide you're interested in the smokefire in the future, let me know I will let you know the benefits and pitfalls of the model.

Ok unwrapped them after 2 weeks in the fridge and they're a dark black & rigid/solid. Should they be like that or still have a meat like texture to them? Put them in the cold smoker anyway for 2 hours and will follow the rest of your instructions. Difficult to see how they will soften up to be able to slice though

Great stuff, I missed your Dulcet Nottingham twang though..😀 I have had a couple of Lodge 6.5" skillets on order from Amazon since September for those type of things you have done, but have been temporarily stock since then and still waiting 😠 Did you buy the Lodge Sportsman new or find one secondhand on Ebay? I have looked at them in the past, but they seem expensive, but a very nice piece of kit.

Thanks @Wade@Inkbird for the replies very helpful. Gone back up to full price whilst I dithered, hopefully will be on a Black Friday deal and will definitely snap one up then if so.

Hi & welcome to the forum Barstonlita, I won't bore you with a long reply about pellet smokers as you seem to have decided on a Kamado type smoker. But to address the point of smoke from a pellet grill, yes the smoke flavour isn't as pronounced on a pellet grill as a charcoal/wood one. But what I have found is the people I have served the food I have cooked have been far more appreciative of the sligtlyl milder/not so pronounced smoke flavour from the pellet grill in most cases than what I used to produce on my old bullet smoker, and as much as your doing all the cooking yourself, you can be catering for a number people sometimes who may not be as appreciative of the stronger level of smoke you are used to some of the time. There is no way you can get the level of smoke flavour from a pellet grill that you do from charcoal/wood type smoker, but there are a couple of ways of getting a little more into your cook. The pellet grill I have has a smokeboost feature which will cook the food at 150-200f for the initial start of the cook, for however long you want. It works by getting the pellets to smoulder rather than burn and that produces a stronger smoke flavour to the food from the start (as no meat really takes on smoke flavour anyway once the bark has formed usually up to 3-4 hours into cook or thereabouts). Also you can buy one of those pellet tubes and fill it with pellets and place it on the grill whilst it is cooking, that will give you an extra 3-4 hours of more smoke around the meat from the start if you don't have a grill with a Smokeboost or similar type of function. As with everything it comes down to personal choice, I love my pellet grill and wouldn't change it for anything else on the market at the moment, love the simplicity of it, the level of smoke suits my household much more than the charcoal ever has and the different styles of food and the ability to cook between 225-600F at the turn of a dial is a godsend. That being said if the Komodo Joe is in your budget, then you are getting a rock solid piece of kit that would be the envy of most backyard BBQ'ers without a doubt and will serve you well, enjoy it.

On a pretty good offer £20.99 for the Standard and £32.19 for the Wifi version at the moment on Amazon. Tempted to get one for my ProQ Cold Smoking Cabinet, but wondered if anyone any experience of this device with Cold Smoking and how beneficial it has been?

10 hours at 120C in the oven Removed about half a pint of liquid, for the sauce (cool it down first to remove the fat, reduce and add cornflour to thicken it up) serve with mash and garden peas

Hi Rawce, welcome to the forum, haven't used my ProQ for a while, but reading your post, you seem to be worrying about a 5 degree temp difference? Really it is nothing to worry about and personally if aiming for 225F anything between 210-240F will still cook your food fine and an even bigger temp diff won't make that much difference. Doing ribs today and where I would always aim for around 225F on my ProQ, currently doing them on my pellet grill at 245F and started them off at 200F for the first hour. Meat is very forgiving, cooked over a long period of time and, doesn't need an exact constant temp. I remember having great difficultly and worried constantly at first if it deviated from 225F so long as you are in the range of 210-250F or thereabouts your meat will cook fine from my experience. Using your ProQ over time will help you learn it's little quirks and how to adapt them, wouldn't stress over it to much at the beginning and just keep practicing with cheaper cuts of meat till you get there.

Looks well constructed, hopefully does a job for you. Found the dedicated smoke cabinet I have brings the smoke flavour to another level over the bullet smoker, although it burns the maze considerably quicker than the it did on the bullet

Recipe here Done this recipe a few times now and the flavours, smell and the sauce are amazing, I serve it with just plain buttery mash and garden peas or in tacos and both work equally well. For the initial searing off the ribs have done it a couple of ways, as per the recipe and smoked them <225F for 2-3 hours first, then searing them. Both work equally well and you could then finish them off on the smoker if using coal. But as i have a pellet grill and the expense, I finish the braising part in the oven as it is more cost effective. It is relatively inexpensive, my butcher (as per picture) cuts up a rack of 4 ribs, just under 4kg for me into thirds so I end up with 12 smaller manageable pieces usually costs me around £17 for them and gives me 2 or 3 meals from it. The only things I do different, is seperate some sauce into a pan once cooked and thicken it, but leave the rest still cooking whilst doing that, rather than letting it cool and reheating it, there is still plenty of sauce left. Also I seperate meat from the bone and fat before putting it onto the plate, were both not keen on beef fat, but obviously if that's your thing then can be left as is. Never found affordable dried shitake mushrooms, so I leave those out. Doing this in the week again , so will try and remember to post some pictures.

Thanks Wade gave it ago 🤞 it turns out edible. Cured it yesterday, the cure smelled lovely with the orange and thyme. Surprised how much liquid was released from the 2 breasts in such a short time. Wrapped in muslin and put in the fridge for 2 weeks now, then I will cold smoke it as per your instructions

Thanks @WadeBought a couple of Duck Crowns this morning to seperate the breasts as the ones I got from Costco ended up tiny, 150g each, normally there quite big but these were miniscule. Hopefully the Muslin Stockinette I ordered should be here from Weschenfelder on Tuesday hopefully, so will cure them on Monday ready to put them in there.

Picked some duck breasts up from Costco today, going to give it ago over the weekend Quick Question the bit where it says "Spread half of the mix over the skin sides of both the first fillet and the second. Place the second fillet on top of the first with the skin side up" (should that be the meat sides)? and basically I leave it to cure with the two pieces together so it's like a like a duck sandwich Bought a muslin stocking roll, that I can tie at both ends, do you Air Dry them separately or can you wrap more than 1 in a stocking Thanks

Did my first ever dessert outdoors today, Apple Tartin. (I don't even like apples) but I was assured by my wife and neighbour it was delicious and a little smoky. Recipe here if interested in giving it ago

Did a couple of slabs of bacon last night, couple of things I noticed different from doing it in my old ProQ Frontier to this. 1) A whole maze of dust burns through in around 5 hours, in the Frontier it could go 12-14 hours with the same amount of dust. I Assume it is airflow as considerably more smoke is generated with this cabinet than I could ever achieve with the Frontier. 2) Imprint of the rack is left on the meat once removed, hopefully will disappear over a couple of days, whilst allowing the smoke to settle on the meat, if not then hanging it may be the way forward. 3) Quiet a sticky mess and a couple of small grease pools inside the cabinet after 12 hours of smoking and will only build up over time. Should I leave it (seasoning) or scrub it out every so often? With the Frontier, you know it would be burnt off in the next cook, not so with this cabinet. 4) Proof of pudding will be in the eating, but the colour of the meat after smoking far surpasses anything I ever did on the Frontier, it has a gorgeous yellow colour to the fat, really looking forward to trying it, looks and smells way better than anything I have cold smoked on the Frontier before.

Thanks @Wade got all the ingredients in the house to try. Will give it a go sometime in the week, to see how it turns out as a practice run for Xmas. Cheers

Had some intermittent freezing and the whole control panel locking up and could only be powered down by turning of the mains switch rather than the shutdown method. They're sending me a new controller to fit. Had an email with a £25 voucher sent this week as a Thank You for being a a Weber VIP, assume it is something to do with purchasing a Smokefire, although I bought it elsewhere and not Weber.

Glad you enjoyed it, if winter is going to be anything like today and the rest of the weekend, hearty indoor recipes are going to be needed quite a bit

Hi @ Wade, I have been looking at trying to cold smoke a couple of Duck Breasts, there are so many variations and advice given to this. Any experience of doing it by this method? looking at a duck breast once cured and cold smoked can be sliced without cooking. Was looking at this recipe seems straightforward and a easy one to try, never used PDV Salt before (thought it was for fish ponds) and sold in large quantities, do you think ordinary salt or kosher can be used in its place?

Fried Jerk Chicken Strips 30 minutes Smokeboost then coated in flour & jerk seasoning and egg wash twice. Then 12 minutes fried in Vegetable Shortening at 450F. Lovely flavour though not exactly Caribbean as served with Mushy Peas on the side😀

Love a Suet Pudding

After just under 3 hours smoking, came out a lovely yellow colour (started out creamy white) all round the outside and imparted a good smoke smell to them. Putting in the fridge for a few days to let the smoke settle and then get stuck in. 2 slabs of pork belly for bacon curing at the moment, hoping to get them smoked later next week.

Put 2 small blocks of cheese in it this morning to try it out. The outside air temp was showing 56F and with the cheese in and door closed and CSG on it climbed to 59F so all in all not to bad. (Would have put a couple of ice packs in, but none in the freezer) but as cheese should be ok. So looks like the internal temps when working are pretty well matched to the external air temp, so pleased about that and the smoke comes out the back from the top 2 vents nicely. Hopefully this video works to show the visible smoke from the back and the photo shows the space inside with 2 blocks of cheese

Just got back from JTF and picked up a Aus-10 Damascus (67 Layers of Japanese Damascus Steel) 17.5cm Santoku Knife and Bread Knife good quality and very sharp, lighter than the Zelite knives I usually use but very pleased with the quality for the price. Some of the knives retail for over £100 each on Amazon and elsewhere Postage is £7.99 but if like me you have a store close by no postage needed Pairing or All Purpose knife £14.99 Bread, Carving, Santoku 12.5 or 17.5 cm knife £19.99 HTH

Arrived today, bought a new CSG as my old one had seen better days, will try it out with a few blocks of cheese tomorrow to see how it performs and check temps. Not ideal 9 degrees forecast tomorrow, but not really forecast to go much lower than that over the next 2 weeks anyway. Looks like it will hold 3 pieces of pork belly/loin around 1.5kg each, 2.5kg of cheese per rack. Fish will have to be hung from the top but should easily hold 2 or 3 sides of salmon Magnetic door 2 vents at the back at top to let the smoke escape