paul6057

That pulled pork looks greats. I've struggled with pulled pork on my WSM. I don't know whether I'm over cooking or under cooking it. I suspect probably under. The one I did on Saturday, it was half a pork shoulder on the bone, not sure of the weight, but it was not small. It was probably cooking for 7, maybe 8 hours at around 200F on the WSM, until it was probing around 88-90C. My Weber Instant Read sets the cooking temp for well done to 88 degrees. When I took it off, I rested it for about an hour, but it wasn't fall apart tender. It's nice enough and it's not really dry, but it's not super tender. It has a firm bite to it and definitely wouldn't pull apart. Any recommendations or tips would be welcomed.

Thanks for the input an recommendations. I'll give the Go Anywhere a try I think. The smokeless grill looks good, but I want something with a lid as well, so the Go Anywhere looks great.

Is there such a thing as a good, small barbecue? I'm considering something to put in the car when we go on holiday, or maybe to pull out in the evening when I only want to grill up a few burgers for family dinner. I've seen Landmann have a small kamado, which seems too cheap to be any good. Anyone got any experience with that, or anything else worth looking at?

I figured as I had the WSM fired up, I should make use of the surface area and throw on some baby back ribs and a pork shoulder too.

I just picked up a slab of short ribs which I'm planning on doing on my WSM. Anyone got any recommendations or tips for this?

That's the same as Waitrose then.

Saw these in Waitrose this morning. I haven't price checked, but £10 for 5kg of Weber lumpwood seemed alright, so I bought one.

This looks awesome, and while I am definitely not at all "handy" this is something that I'm seriously going to considering making. It also makes me thing that you could use this to make a really awesome tandoor.

I use Australian Heat Beads for my barbecue. I prefer briquettes to lump wood just because of the uniformity of shape and therefore it is somewhat more predictable and consistent. Sounds like what everyone else has said, that your overall temperature was too low which meant the cook took really long. I cooked a chicken on my Smokey Mountain, beer-can style at about 110 C, and I don't think that even took 3 hours total to cook. I'm not sure on the bad smokey flavour. That might be a side effect of the fuel burning without enough air so not as clean as it should be. Some briquettes, especially if you're talking about supermarket or DIY store briquettes, can be made with some chemical binders that don't burn so cleanly and can give food a bit of a tainted taste. Good luck with the future barbecuing.

I've used paint brushes in the past (obviously not used for painting). Just make sure they're decent quality and given them a good clean beforehand, but it worked alright. I do prefer the silicone brush though I must say, as the brush soaked up a lot of the marinade.

Well, the master of barbecuing, Aaron Franklin, says that a general rule of thumb is that a brisket would cook for 1 hour 15 minutes per pound at 250F, but there's no exact rule or science to it.

I've ordered from Smokewood Shack in the past. Got some awesome oak barrel chunks from there. The last batch I bought from an eBay seller, and I bought a load of cherry wood (edited: this seems to be the same as the Amazon seller mentioned above). https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/gwernyfed-wood I'm getting low on my wood supplies though, so will need to purchase some new stuff soon enough, so let me know if you have any recommendations.

How long did the beef ribs smoke for? They look incredible, and I now want to try this!

I suppose for £45, I could buy the two different sizes of Pro Q baskets, and just use whichever one is most appropriate for the cook that I'm doing... https://proqsmokers.co.uk/products/proq-replacement-charcoal-basket?variant=31126040772682

I was looking at something like this the other day, but I just don't understand the price: https://prosmokebbq.co.uk/collections/bbq/products/wsm-57cm-firebasket To me, £75 just seems mad expensive. Are my expectations off? I'm looking for something to go in my 57cm WSM to hold the coals together a bit better.

I'm all for buying gadgets for my WSM too, but when I want to do direct grilling, that's when I use my Landmann that is getting a bit rusted. Where do you get your WSM add-ons from? I'm thinking of getting a rotisserie. Not ideal for a WSM but I reckon it will still be functional, and if I love it, maybe I'll buy a kettle, and that'll answer my question above.

I think the most memorably unexpectedly brilliant barbecue I had was in a little place called Bobby Q's Pit Stop which is this tiny little shack in Old Greenwich, Connecticut. I was staying at a hotel there for a work trip and went walking to find something for dinner, and just stumbled across this unassuming, no-frills place. The burnt ends were incredible, and they also do these amazing fried pickles. It's the only good thing about business travel to Connecticut.

I've never tried to get my WSM running at that high a temperature, as it's not really designed for that. Typically keep it around 110C which is around 230F, and I think much hotter for a longer period of time might be tough. Might have to but a kettle now too...

Also, any reason why this wouldn't work on a Smokey mountain, or would you need it in a kettle so the meat is close to the coals?

This looks awesome, and was what I came on here to ask about. I've seen these on a US website. Was curious whether anyone knows if they're possible to get in the UK and if anyone has had any experience or success with them. How did the chicken work out? Have you done anything else with it? I'd be interested in this for doing picanha.

I haven't used either, but I did recently buy a load of bags of heat beads from here - https://www.bedsbbq.co.uk/cgi-bin/sh000010.pl?WD=heat beads&PN=australian-heat-beads.html#SID=150. They're £8 a bag, so a bit more expensive than the ones you've put above. I think that price was the same as what I paid last year though. I'd be interested to know how you get on with either of the above, if you go that route. From the looks of them, my guess would be the main difference is going to be maintaining temperature over a long period of time, and having to use extra fuel for that.

I've concluded with brisket, that if you're cooking the flat, then it's just not as good. It's still nice, but burnt ends with the brisket point are probably the most delicious thing that you can ever create on a barbecue. I've often wondered what the supermarket chain brisket is like. I bought a random bit from Sainsburys a couple of months ago, which came rolled, so I didn't know what I was getting. That came in two pieces, and the end result was decent, but again, the flat was just naturally drier than the point, because of the lack of fat running through it. Was a bit of a lottery on the purchase though, as it could have been anything.

Hi all - I am looking for some recommendations or suggestions for an upgrade for one of my barbecues. I currently have two barbecues, a Weber Smokey Mountain which is a new(ish) purchase, and so I'm getting used to doing some long slow smokes on that. The other one that's been my mainstay for the past 4 years is a Landmann Kentucky off set smoker. The Landmann is looking a bit worse for wear these days, and so I am hoping to get some recommendations on a good replacement. I primarily use the Landmann these days for direct grilling, however it is also pretty decent at getting some some on things like pork shoulders that have been cooked in the sous vide (although I suppose I could use the WSM for that now too. What I like most about the oil drum style over something like a classic Weber kettle, is the warming shelf, so I can remove food from the direct heat, but still keep it in the barbecue, while other things are going. When I have used the Landmann for smoking, it's clear that it's not the best piece of kit (I think at the time I bought it, end of season, it was around £100, so a really good price) as there is a lot of smoke leakage. The system for raising and lowering the coal shelf is also pretty rudimentary and with the brackets sticking out at the side, does annoy me a bit when using a grilling basket, as I can't lat it across the grill sideways. I'm not looking at spending Komodo money on this, but something that is a decent performer in an average sort of price range. Any tips or recommendations would be appreciated. Cheers, Paul

I use them in my 57cm Smokey Mountain. I've suffered I think with not lighting enough to start with so the temperature took a long time and a lot of work to get up to where I wanted it, but once I've got the temperature stabilised, I've found that they're pretty consistent for 8 - 10 hour smokes. With the amount of fuel that I've been using (about 1 and a bit bags per cook), I haven't tried getting the temperature over about 110 C, but with my WSM, I could see that being a challenge if I wanted to try it. I have also used heat beats for direct grilling and found that they light really easily in my chimney, and they get perfectly hot to grill up some crispy skin chicken thighs and burgers. They didn't last as long as I was expecting, but I think that's down to the fact that my smoker is really big, I've only used it a few times, and my expectations were based on watching people in Texas when it's 40 degrees, rather than in Surrey on a slightly cool spring day.

I added this post on another thread, but I don't think anyone has really seen it, so thought I'd open a new topic here. I wanted to get some thoughts on what the benefits of a kettle barbecues are for. Can someone please elaborate for me? Are they intended for one thing over another, or are they a good hybrid that can be used for direct grilling and indirect smoking? I've always found them pretty annoying, as when you take the lid off, you have to find somewhere to put it, there's no warming rack in there either, and being circular, I perceive it to be harder to create hotter and cooler cooking zones. I'm curious as I've always had oil drum style barbecues. I like with them there is a large cooking area, and a warming rack which hangs in the lid too, which you don't tend to get with kettles. I purchased a WSM at the end of last year for those long slow smokes, and I've previously been using a Landmann offset smoker (but with that, I've mostly been using it to add smoke flavour for a few hours, but having to do the bulk of the meat cook in either the over or the sous vide). I also bought a second cheap oil drum from Argos last summer, primarily for quick direct grilling when I'd run out of space on my Landmann. I guess I'm curious what the benefits of a kettle are over a bullet smoker or oil drum barbecue.