valve90210

Seems there was a problem with a huge chunk of the internet that was causing problems with loads of website including amazon, the guardian, the uk government etc and also smartfire it seems. all back up and running now it seems.

@IcefeverThis is looking excellent! 

Hi all, 

First time posting for a while, been a busy year for me so far and I've not had much chance to do any smokes but today I'm doing a bug pork joint for my neighbour. Using my SmartFire with my gen 1 Callow (with modded firebasket courtesy of @Wade).

I was hoping to be able to monitor things in a browser as I have done before but the webapp seems to not be working, I'm just getting a 503 error and strangely the SmartFire website is also not loading properly for me. Does anyone know if it is still possible to monitor via a web browser?

Just saw this and thought I'd share:

https://www.lidl.co.uk/en/c/grillmeister-mini-kamado-barbecue/c1860

Coming from 22nd April, will no doubt sell out fast.

@Wade Lamb, I never thought I'd see the day!! 🤣

I've been away from home for the last week with my boy and my parents, been doing some bbqing and stuff during the week. This evening it's a quick dinner at my parents house on their cadak thingy. 

Tomorrow I'm hoping to be home and doing something with one of the smokers. 🤞

On 6/24/2020 at 12:39 AM, Raptor72 said:

A perfect scene for the British summer, a bbq, a chair in the sun and some booze, what could be better??

I've been stupidly busy over the last few months and also lacking in motivation but yesterday I hit the buy button on a fresh new sack of hickory pellets and will be firing up a smoker at the weekend; it might be just the davy crockett...I'm undecided as yet but I can't wait to smell that lovely smoke and get some meat on the go!  Roll on some nice weather and some free time! 

I hope you're all keeping well. 

The gel I'm fairly sure would be fine it's what I could package it in that I'm wondering about. My intention would be to have a package of it stuck to the lid of the container so it wouldn't actually be in contact with the rubs.

I have a load of silica gel sachets which I have picked up from work (they come in the print toner cartridges, I generally give them to my parents as they stick them in a container out in there post-retirement-crisis sports car to control excess moisture  during the winter when they're not using it much.

However, I was wondering if I could repackage it into anything I've got at home already to pop into my jars of homemade bbq rubs to stop them getting damp and all stuck together. Anyone got any bright ideas? I know they are pretty much cheap as chips to but from amazon etc but I've not paid anything for the gel I have at the moment and if there' something I might already have at home that I could use then I might as well save a few pennies where i can...

Hmmmm, do I need a second one....🤔

On 10/20/2019 at 1:03 PM, Mick said:

I have owned 2 pellet grills in the past both gmg, I got the large Jim Bowie and the small davy crocket, both are great grills but I just didn't enjoy cooking on them as much as my charcoal BBQs, my son has one and the other is just collecting dust now, they really are just not as much fun

Which one is collecting dust?? 

Any idea of the prices for one of the basic pods?

Certainly seems to have a good cooking space. Notice the grill is quite a bit below the lip of the bottom bowl, that give a good extra bit of height clearance that a lot of kettle type bbqs don't are lacking, along with the nice deep lid. 

I've left mine out in a a keter storage box and never had an issue when I've come to use it.

How is it for temperature control etc?

@Smokin Monkey Hi Steve

Have you used this much, has it been a success?

Hi All

I recently had a holiday in Bulgaria and, although the resort was a typical tourist trap, i have to say I saw some cooking equipment at a few of the restaurants that I really rather liked, and I was constantly catching the glorious waft of meat cooking over wood and charcoal!

A lovely charcoal kebab cooker the spits lay across the width and you can just about see the gearing that rotated them all. This place smelt wonderful!

The next three pics are all actually different restaurants but with essentially the same kit in each of them, a water mill (via tap and hosepipe) powered Rotisserie 

Anyone up for making one of these in their garden? 🤩

Quote

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-49877237

A controversial study says cutting down on sausages, mince, steak and all other forms of red or processed meat is a waste of time for most people.

 

It's good enough for me, not that I had cut down anyway  but this might make people a little less judgmental about eating meat!

As it was going to be a nice weekend, I decided to defrost two joints of meat that have been knocking about in the freezer for a while. A nice silverside of beef and a pork shoulder.

I also figured as there would be space I'd also cook a pastrami style brisket I had from Morrisons.

Only my second actual cook with the SmartFire (SF) and for this one I had actually already managed to get some playpit sand for the Callow, so my first time using sand instead of water.

I setup the same as the previous testing and cooking. 7 lit Heatbeads added to the opposite side of the firebasket to the SF. the rest of the basket filled with Heatbeads and a nice couple of handfulls of fruitwood mix pellets.

After about an hour the Callow was up to my desired 110C and in went the meat.

As you can see from my SF graph things went pretty swimmingly really.

A few points on the graph which look like they could be issues but are actually nothing to worry about.

1) temp drop caused by me changing probes having realised I'd used a food probe for the pit initially.

2) temp drop while lid off to put meat in the Callow

3) 4) & 5) spritzing meat with cider

6) Wrapping Food 3 (Brisket)

7) Removing brisket and Food 1 (Pork) Yep I did drop the food 1 probe into the really hot bit of fat on top of the foil of the sand hence the sudden big temp spike!

😎 wrapping Food 2 (Beef Joint)

9) All done

After a good bit of resting I sliced and bagged up the beef and pork (and forgot to take photos!) Both were delicious!
 

I did remember to take a couple of quick snaps of the brisket though. It was delicious, great texture and a very pleasing smoke ring!

How did you get on with modding this?

I'd love to see more details about this, it looks great!

I shall have to have a look and see if they have anything in the store near me... not that i really need another smoker....

Nice, they look fab, are they on clearance?  How would you say build quality compares to the ProQ?

I've only just caught up with this build, it looks amazing!!  such an impressive looking piece of kit and I'm sure you'll be doing some amazing cooks with it for a long time to come!