valve90210

ooo I may have to give this a try, my parents have a couple of trout in the freezer that I could use...

Wow, that looks amazing!! I so want to build a tandoor this year, I had been thinking mainly for chicken kebab type things but now I want to do this!!

That's a good idea, thanks will save me a good bit of time.

That does sound good, I may well go for that!

That does sound delicious, though thinking about it, I'm not sure the lemon would be ok for my mum, It's book marked for me for later in the year though! Thank you.

In need of cheering myself up a little today so I thought I'd very belatedly post up the spread I did for my belated Christmas Day with my little boy (he was with his mum on actual Christmas) and my family. Despite the fact I knew everyone would probably be a bit sick of rich Christmas food, I wanted to produce somewhat of a feast as I seldom entertain at my house and I wanted the day to feel special and Christmassy, and what says Christmas more than huge amounts of food? I decided to steer away from turkey and do something a little different so I opted for pulled pork, pulled lamb and schwarma beef fattie sort of thing, along with the usual veg and trimmings. I smoked and froze the pork and the lamb in the run up to Christmas and premade the fattie and froze it to make life a little easier on myself on the actual day. Anyway enough words, bring on the pics! The fattie ready to slice: The fattie sharing a chaffing tray with the pulled lamb: Pulled pork sharing a chaffing dish with pigs in blankets: Some of the veg: Best Dinner of the year!!

This weekend I'm looking to smoke a chicken while my parents are round helping me with some diy and stuff. I've smoked whole chickens a couple of times before when I first got my Callow smoker and had reasonable results, for those I just mixed up some garlic butter and spread it under the skin then went ahead and smoked them. I did experience a major stall for on one of them but I'm happy that I can overcome that now with foil wrapping, but has anyone got any other tips that might be useful (I've ruled out brining on this occasion as I simply don't have the time or motivation to do it at the moment)? Also, has anyone got any suggestions for flavour combinations I could try? My mum has to be careful with what she's eating at the moment and has to avoid anything spicy that could irritate her digestive system, so nothing like chilli, ginger, garlic et as such I'm trying to think of something nice and gentle but flavoursome that would be suitable for her. I might also do a second chicken for myself with a schwarma mix I made over christmas which worked brilliantly in a beef meatloaf/fattie sort of thing I made for my christmas. Any thoughts

Just had a look at the instructions Wade posted, looks to be a lot of changes have been made, not just the new side vents. There's an additional vent in the base, the original had 3 this one has 4, there's an extra vent in the lid, and the holes in the sides of the fire basket. Certainly a lot of potential for hugely increased airflow. I'll be very interested to see the results of the testing Wade's been doing. Personally I haven't had a problem reaching 110C with my original Callow, in fact that's pretty much where it wants to stay at all times! It's the higher temperatures that have been harder to reach though that's probably down to my newbie smoking skills.

Very much looking forward to seeing the results!

Funnily enough I noticed on gumtree (or maybe ebay) someone selling a callow smoker before christmas and that too was in a Cook4All branded box but was definitely the original Callow design

I have noticed the same with my Qmasterlite. Testing in boiling water both my Qmaster probe and an Inkbird probe were showing 99/100C but in the bbq with them next to each other the Qmaster was a good 10 - 15C lower than the inkbird.I had to set the Qmaster to 110C to get the pit temp to be around 120C. I have also had quite big temp swings which I think has been exacerbated by opening the lid. The sudden temp drop kicks the fan off and the gradual reheating of the chamber (which I knew would get back up to my desired temperature nicely) meant the fan stayed on for a while thus causing super the coals to get far too hot and give me big temperature swings. I'm contemplating a manual switch on the fan so I can manually turn the fan off when I need to open the bbq for whatever reason and then switch it back on once the temperature has gone back to where it was. I'd also use it at the start of my cooks to keep te fan off while the coals establish themselves as the first time I used the Qmaster the fans were blowing like mad at the start when the coals were building temperature which led to them being far too hot and massively over shooting once the fans stopped... I'm sure it's just a case of practice making perfect when it comes to using these things... Oh and btw I used the recommended settings you mentioned on my last cook and still had big temp swings though as mentioned I think this might have been due to the lid removal etc.

@Wade Thanks for this, an very useful and informative post, thanks for taking the time to do the research and writing it up! I for one will still be eating bacon!!

Ooo, that is interesting, thank you I shall have a look into this.

I might be interested in this if you don't mind keeping hold of it until the new year? I'm just down the road in Maidstone but have so much on over the coming week or so I won't have any time to come and collect. I'd be using it to make up cider for the summer months (and may be some gluten free beer if I can find a good kit...)

I look forward to your review might make a nice addition to my collection...

This may well get added to my menu when it comes to my Christmas (on the 28th...lol) it looks amazing!!

Looking at this thread makes me feel much better, I've only got the 6 bbqs at the moment... No pics to upload with me right now but a quick list Callow Bullet Smoker Super cheap Weber lookalike (best £10 ever spent! :)) A lovely big brick charcoal grill that will also be my rotisserie when I can get it finished in the spring A cheap and nasty little grill bbq which I've had sat outside uncovered for the last 5 years - this might be retired soon 2 cheap and cheerful 2 burner gas bbqs which I only really use for super quick spur of the moment bbqs I'm very tempted by a ProQ, and a genuine Weber one day, oh and I'm interested to hear about the new Callow when it arrives, and I'd like to build myself a Tandoor next year...

I shall have to check this out, need to stock up on salmon !!

Hmmm, that's very odd indeed, with mine when I use the minion method it slowly climbs in temperature up to the 110c mark or thereabouts (measured at the top grill with a separate probe thermometer) and stays there with out any problems at all. Will have to see what wade thinks when he replies, I know he's impressed with the Callow and even uses it to demonstrate how you can get good results with a low cost entry level smoker.

I've been using one of these for the best part of a year now and never had a problem getting it up to temperature. @Wade is the man to ask really as he's been using his for longer and has done extensive testing on it with all kinds of different variables tested. My initial questions would be 1) what fuel are you using? 2) how well lit is the charcoal when you tip it out of the chimney? 3) When you say probe thermometer, do you mean a separate one or the one built into the lid (which are known to be some what inaccurate!) ? I use the minion method with mine and have no problem at all getting to the 110c mark...