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New Member Jaywuu


Jaywuu

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Hi all, 

thank you for letting me join.

I am very new and have yet to smoke my first meat so thought I would get the help and advice from people who are doing this and also have the skills. 

I am open to any advice you have to offer and will be grateful to all for the advice. also looking for advice on devices as the one I have is from Lidl so very cheep to see if I could mange temperature and have been okay at it so ready to smoke in anger.

thank you

John 

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Once again John, welcome to the Forum.

Pictures of your Smoker would be helpful.

I say this to everyone, start simple, walk before you can run.

Start on a cheaper piece of meat like a whole chicken. Spatchcock it, rub it with what ever you like, could be a simple rub bought from a Supermarket.

Then get it on your Smoker. Do not cook to time, cook to Internal Temperature (IT) of the Chicken at the thickest Parts, usually the thigh. Aim for 76’C. 

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Hi John and welcome to the forum....you've made a very wise decision in joining this little band of grillers & smokers.  When I joined I owned a simple Brinkman that we'd had for around 2 years and it only got used on a few occasions.

We joined, got an invite to attend Woodsmoke 18 at Northampton back in July and boy o boy what a do that was.  Now our "stable" of BBQ kit is a Landmann Kentucky offset, a Tepro pot belly, a 57cm Webber, it just goes on & on.

We now make our own bacon,  the Brinkman is now a permanent smoker,  we smoked 2kg of  Mature Cheddar cheese the other week....so take it from me matey your in the right place.

There's plenty to read on here,  like anything it can be a steep learning curve,  but if I can do it anybody can.   :thumb1:

Ice.

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13 hours ago, Jaywuu said:

also looking for advice on devices as the one I have is from Lidl so very cheep to see if I could mange temperature and have been okay at it so ready to smoke in anger.

Hi John and welcome to the forum. Where in the UK are you?

There are a lot of options when it comes to buying a smoker and before we can offer you practical advice about which one to buy we will need a little more information. You may not know some of the answers with any certainty at this stage but that is fine - it will give us an idea.

  • What have you tried smoking already (if anything) and what do you think you will want to try? Most people at some point will want to smoke things like  ribs, pulled pork, brisket and chicken. The smoker is really just an extension of your kitchen oven so you can cook almost anything you cook indoors in the smoker - you can even cook your Christmas turkey or bake bread in it.
  • How many people are you likely to want to cook for? Will it be mostly for 3 or 4 people or do you like cooking for larger groups?
  • Do you like cold smoked foods too (cheese, bacon etc.)? If so then it is worth considering getting one that will work well as a cold smoker too. The other option here is to do as @Icefeverhas done and keep your old Lidl smoker as well and use it as a cold smoker.
  • What is your rough price range? Good smokers start at under £100 and go upwards from there. You can get a very usable smoker in the £95-£150 range and there are a lot of smokers in the £250-£350 range. Above that the sky is your limit !!!
  • Are you looking for a smoker that you can constantly "tweak" and play around with (are you a closet techie engineer) or do you want one that is no-nonsense and just smokes good food and needs very little attention? Whichever way you lean you will be producing  some great food very quickly. 

When I first started smoking over 25 years ago I was using a simple Weber Kettle - and I often still smoke in one today. A kettle BBQ is a very versatile unit and you will be able to smoke most things on it very successfully. Capacity in a single kettle may be an issue if you are wanting to smoke several different things at the same time - but for small gatherings they are great.

Bullet smokers (e.g. ProQ Frontier, Weber Smoky Mountain and Callow) fall into the category of no-nonsense smokers that just sit there smoking the meat and needing little attention. For some these do not "look the part" of what an American style smoker is perceived to be - but the taste of the food at the end is what really counts. At every BBQ competition almost every team will have at least one ProQ or WSM smoker. These are essentially vertically extended kettle BBQs that have two good size cooking grates inside and are designed for temperature stability. I have regularly used all three of the models I mentioned above. The Callow (Cook4All) is an inexpensive entry level smoker but it does have capacity issues if you are cooking for more than, say, 3 or 4 people. The ProQ Frontier and WSM are a little more expensive (~£300) but they have a much larger cooking area. Out of the ProQ and WSM, both are good, but I prefer the ProQ - simply because it gives you easier access to the bottom cooking grate.

Offset smokers are more of what people perceive a typical American smoker to look like and the Landmann Kentucky mentioned above falls into this category. These are often favoured by the more techie smokers amongst us as they offer more opportunity to tweak and fine tune the cooking environment. Care needs to be taken though when choosing a make/model, as the quality of the builds can vary greatly. Most of these sold to the public end up just being used as a long BBQ grill (which works well), however if you are looking to low-and-slow cook in one they will almost all need some modifications made when they come out of the box. The cooking techniques used in a home offset smoker are slightly different to those in a bullet smoker due to the way the temperature varies along the cooking chamber. A lot of people use this type of smoker  and produce very good food on them.

Pellet smokers look like Offset smokers, however instead of a fire box they have a pellet hopper. This feeds wood pellets into a crucible inside the cooking chamber where they are burned to create the heat and smoke. These require to be electrically powered as they can be programmed and the temperature inside is controlled by a small processor. These start at about £400 and go upwards from there. They are becoming increasingly more popular however I would not recommend one as your first smoker.

If you want to try building your own then you can make one out of an oil drum. These are commonly called Ugly Drum Smokers (UDS) and work in a very similar way to the bullet smokers. If you are technically minded then these are fun to build, however it is probably not a good idea to build one as your very first smoker.

Lots of things to think about. If you let us know the answers to the questions above we can help you to decide. :thumb1: 

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Hi Icefever, thank you for the welcome and advice people have been very kind and I would love to go to a meet some time.

Hi Wade, 

thank you o much for the fantastic reply and the time you have clearly given without ever meeting me, what go around comes around and god things happy to good people.

so I live In Paisley just outside of Glasgow, my budget is anything, I don't want to buy a really expensive unit just because its expensive, I would rather be practical and try to get an understanding of the technique to understand what unit would best suit, this may change as I go along.....

I would be cooking for me and my family 3 kids and me and the wife, I have a large family who also meet every Sunday and from time to time I do cook for them so seven brothers and sisters and all the family that come with that.

So I to date have not used the smoker for smoking I did use it this year for cooking bbq and it was great. I have fired up the smoker unit at the side and messed around  with air flow etc... to see how the temperature react.

I was going to try  Spatchcock chicken at the weekend as advise ( also start easy and learn). I watched a TV program about building log cabins so I did just that, I have been watching Man Fire Food lately and although had the smoker before watching this has spurred me on. 

again thanks to everyone for taking the time to help a stranger

john

Smoker-Barbecue-A.jpg

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24 minutes ago, Jaywuu said:

my budget is anything, I don't want to buy a really expensive unit just because its expensive, I would rather be practical and try to get an understanding of the technique to understand what unit would best suit, this may change as I go along.....

In that case I would suggest that you buy two smokers that will give you the ultimate flexibility and the capacity when you need it.

1 - A ProQ Frontier Elite (~£290). This will give you good capacity for the hot roasting and the low-and-slow cooking and it requires very little maintenance during a smoke. It also makes a very good cold smoker too

1614597011_ProQFrontierElite.thumb.jpg.ef61f2069cbc1c1dc46151f7e2f20058.jpg

If you need even more capacity you can also add additional extension sections.

2 - A 57 cm Weber Original Kettle (~£150) or a 57 cm Weber Master Touch (~£210)

606183168_WeberKettleOriginal.jpg.805ef06540a7629ecae6a56965f39523.jpg402557696_WeberKettlePremium.jpg.6a545ab27fa0c9ee99c777beb79a567f.jpg

The only difference between the two is that the Premium has an enclosed ash collector. You can grill, smoke and roast on these.

You would also need to buy at least one dual probe digital thermometer - or possibly a 4 probe thermometer.

 

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thank you wade the advice is really appreciated and taken on board, I am a great believer in not reinventing the wheel maybe just making it a little rounder.

if you have any advice on a wireless thermometer that would also be great.

ProQ ordered, unfortunately I need to work tomorrow as a one off and football tournament on Sunday for my kids so will get cracking on Monday onwards.

thank you again to everyone for all of your help so far. 

John

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5 hours ago, Jaywuu said:

if you have any advice on a wireless thermometer that would also be great.

Any of the digital ones will do,  Thermopro or Inkbird seem to be the ones of choice for many folks,  they are in the £30/£40 price range.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_23?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=digital+thermometer+bbq&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Adigital+thermometer+bbq

Ice.

 

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On 8/31/2018 at 9:46 PM, Jaywuu said:

thank you wade the advice is really appreciated and taken on board, I am a great believer in not reinventing the wheel maybe just making it a little rounder.

if you have any advice on a wireless thermometer that would also be great.

ProQ ordered, unfortunately I need to work tomorrow as a one off and football tournament on Sunday for my kids so will get cracking on Monday onwards.

thank you again to everyone for all of your help so far. 

John

Hi John

I have the same ProQ as you. and been happily using it for 2 years. The ProQ range have been updated for 2018 with a few tweaks. I have produced some edible hot and cold smoked food over the months on it with practice and help off here. I think you will enjoy it.

I use the Maverick ET-732 with mine. The wireless works reasonably well I get about 110-120 ft with clear line of sight . So can keep the receiver in the house to read the temperature. It won't go, much further for me though. But think that is due to the walls of the house more than the machine. Amazon have the updated Maverick ET-733 for just under £50 at the moment and would be my choice if looking to buy a Maverick Thermometer today, as only £7 more expensive than the ET-732. The Mavericks only come with 3 ft probe length, But you can buy 6ft probes if you find the 3 ft ones to restrictive over time.Also both probes fit easily through one eyelet. as well

 

 

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