valve90210

I've only got the 7 bbqs... More than enough really but I'd still love a full size weber and I can't help but love the look of an offset smoker....

5 hours ago, Raptor72 said:

Found this at back of our apartment. Alas it’s cracked and disused 

Nothing like a proper wood fire pizza....not like those phoney gas ones!!!🤣

Are there any updates on this? How did it turn out, are you making more?

@sotv  I just do them exactly as I would in the oven, peel and par-boil. Let them dry off and then put into pre-heated oil in foil trays in the smoker at high temp. In the Davy Crockett I used a pellet tube to add some extra smoke as the pellet smoker doesn't produce much smoke at high temperature.  In the past I've done them in a kettle bbq, again at high temps and with hickory pellets which has given a better smoke flavour.

I always make sure to turn the potatoes in the oil when adding them so they have a coating all over for the smoke to stick to. They will need turning in the oil as per normal roast potatoes to get the lovely crispiness.

I've never done them in with anything else as really you need the high temperature to get the oil nice and hot to essentially fry the outer to get the golden crisp outer. (that's why I need 7 bbqs right?)

Oh and if you can get them, King Edwards all the way

I really must do this with my Davy Crockett, as well as getting the wifi sorted...

I'm fairly sure It was Steve on here who said about using white bread. cover the whole of the cooking area and see which bits get toasted/burnt first

Oh lovely, I'll have to pick up some of the wonderful Kentish cherries asap and get some of these made, they were lovely!

16 hours ago, Raptor72 said:

Good meeting you and Rosie finally !! Yeah I’m  recovered now . But yes it was as definitely a beer  virus or red wineitis 

Great to meet you and Lee, such a good laugh, adn what can possibly beat drunken sausage cooking at 2am?? 😂

Just racking my brains to think if there's anything I could offer to go into the raffle...

10 minutes ago, Justin said:

Just a thought, if you are 40 miles away and it is not performing to expectation not much to be done? 

I wouldn't normally be so far away, yesterday was only a test while I was elsewhere dancing. 

I was very impressed indeed, and being able to monitor it from 40 miles away was great. 

Now if I could just get the wifi working properly on my GMG that would be magic!

Yesterday I finally managed to find time to give the smartfire a whirl.  I decided to test it with my Callow (Gen 1 with modified fire basket (Thanks @Wade))

The cake tin adapter fitted onto the Callow vent perfectly so no worries there. I have noticed that the getting the SF into the  adapter is quite a tight fit, I may end up gently sanding the adapter slightly to make it a tiny bit looser but we'll see. 

As has been suggested above I went for an offset minion with the lit coals added opposite the SF. I added 7 lit heatbeads to the basket and, because I couldn't be bothered to traipse to wickes to get sand I added 1 1/2 ish inches of water to the pan. the two bottom vents that weren't in use were fully shut and, as suggested, the top vent I had about 1/4 closed. I was aiming for a nice steady 110C.

Lid on, and SF connected I left it. After about an hour it was up to temperature and about 30 minutes after that I went out for the afternoon to dance over in Eltham. The Callow was safely away from anything flammable and the SF and powerbank I was using to power it were covered to protect from rain should it come while I was out. 

I continued to monitor the temperature in between dances and was very pleased to see it remaining within a couple of degrees of the target temp. There as one small blip where the the temp dropped a little but the fan kicked in brought it back up and then it settled where it should be again. Sadly at 5.17pm (ish😉)the SF went off line and I had to continue dancing whilst wondering what had happened. 

When I got home it turned out the powerbank had run out of power and the SF was off, so nothing too major (Anker pwerbank on order for delivery today! lol). I'm pretty confident that had the SF remained powered on it would have kept the temperature where I wanted it until the coals burnt out. All in all a good initial test. Higher temperature test with be done at some point when I get time. 

Below is the graph from the test. 

I'll certainly think about it, a bit more limited on space this year as I've changed my car. Also I'm not sure quite what I'm going to cook, so not sure what I'll want to bring. I really should put some thought into it...

I'm contemplating bringing it but wondered if it might not be in the spirit of the event what with being able to essentially hit go and leave it...😂

My Davy Crockett arrived yesterday and although i only had a very short amount of time yesterday evening, i gave it a quick test to see if it was working and all seems fine. I'm really looking forward to giving it a test and being able to leave it to do it's own thing while I crack on with my day. 

This evening I'm thinking i might buy a cheap chicken and smoked it just for something to do while i have a builder round! 

Well, they attempted delivery but now one home (which i knew) and seems no neighbours in today, so got to wait until monday now... I was hoping my neighbour might be in and I would be able to have a play over the weekend.

1 hour ago, epangelia2k2 said:

Awesome tip-off @valve90210

Situation on when/if new stock not clear, but spoke to John and have hopefully (for me) grabbed the last one of the 'refurb-units'... assuming it is cleared as OK as being run-through as we speak.

Fingers-crossed.

Thanks again - a great community

No worries buddy, managed to pick one up myself yesterday which is due to be delivered today

On 7/3/2019 at 10:30 PM, ExclusiveBBQ said:

Downsides

There are a couple of downsides I think. The first one is the cost of the pellets; I reckon I used almost half a bag for my beef brisket cook, which worked out as around £7-8. This is obviously more expensive than a charcoal grill but I've since sourced slightly cheaper ones (message me if you'd like details as I had to track them down) and, for anything I wrap in foil, I'll be throwing it in the kitchen oven anyway. The second downside is probably the electricity; it's super convenient but unless you have outdoor sockets or a suitable way of leaving it outside then it might not be worth the hassle.

 

I wouldn't mind the details of the pellets you've tracked down please.

At present they have a small number of refurbished ex-demo Davy Crocketts (or at least they did yesterday) 

Just imagine if everyone came to Billing!! 

That's really quite an impressive graph, I've certainly never managed to get the qmaster to work anything like that well. 

How many lit coals did you add at the start?

How well does the SF work for bringing the temp up from the start?  I've used a Qmaster-Lite before and found that because the fan was blowing full whack from the start it would often make the temp overshoot wildly. 

Any thoughts on what pit setting I should use on the SmartFire?

On 6/26/2019 at 2:17 PM, Rum'n'ribs said:

I found a few coats of danish oil before burning helps bring the grain out better

What varnish etc did you use?

That's a nice looking adapter. I'd be interested to see if it makes a difference to how the SF works compared to the cake tin as I'd think the airflow might be more direct and slightly less turbulent with the flat adapter.