Hi folks,
I'm not a vendor. I'm just a regular meat-smokin dude. My background is that I started with
a barrel smoker with offset smoke box about twenty years ago. I later went lazy with
a Bradley analog electric smoker. After awhile, that one had seen better days and I upgraded
to the Bradley digital. Recently I had a combo wood bisquette feeding problem and heating problem.
I fixed the temp issue by following suggestions from their forum (cleaning and re-fastening contacts in
the smoke generator), and I created a little rube goldberg thing to fix the puck feeding problem. While I
was debugging the problems with the digital smoke generator, and frankly thinking I was going to have
to buy another one, I started researching pellet smokers as I had almost bought one instead
of the Bradley back when.
So after unexpectedly fixing the Bradley, I ended up with a new pellet smoker as well. After a good deal
of research, I chose the Camp Chef Smokepro SG 24, bronze (was on-sale). I bought this model because I liked
the idea of the slide and grill feature. That is, you pull a handle and it moves a flame retarding metal plate out of the
way so that you can get direct flame to your food, sort of. Got the 24 model because it's just my wife and I most of the time.
I'll save my first question for separate post, but I'll go on to say how I feel about these smokers.
1. Manual style barrel smoker - lots of work, but makes fantastic Q. Still to date, I made the best pork butt than
any I'd ever tasted. I can't say that for ribs or chicken or turkey or any other meat. But I just happened to fall into
the best pork bbq. I had bought a book and I'll give credit where due..."Smoke & Spice" by Cheryl Alters Jamison and Bill Jamison.
I used their "The Renowned Mr. Brown" recipe including their Southern SOP mop. The parts that were my choice was that I
used wood charcoal, hickory wood, and cooked it as close to 180 as possible and it would fluctuate of course, and usually those smokes would go for 17 to 20 hours.
I would be up all night setting the alarm once an hour to stoke the fire and slop on some mop periodically. When it was done and after resting,
it was just heaven on earth.
But the problem with the manual barrel smoker was that I didn't have the energy to use it very often because of the extra
work (compared to a Bradley for example). And you see that I bought two Bradleys, so obviously I like their units.
I did generally like smoked food better from my old barrel smoker and I bow to the folks who will go to the trouble each and every time (no argument there).
The Bradleys though did do a great job too and the advantage being how darned easy it is. No smoke ring though and no genuine charcoal'ish flavor, but I
made some phenomenal meals and far more often "for me" just due to ease of use. Compared to my pellet smoker, the big difference is the small amount of
wood needed for the smoke since the heating is done by electric element and the smoke generated separately. That's kind of a big deal as I'm finding with
the pellet smoker, I'm buying many lbs of pellets to do both jobs. But in comparison to my manual barrel smoker, it's still less material than buying the wood
charcoal, I guess due to density of the pellets.
I've only smoked a few so far on the Camp Chef and I have some questions about it which is primarily why I registered with this forum.
My take so far about the pellet smoker... It's really pretty amazing to hit that on button and listen to the fan start up and then shortly smoke
start pouring out. It's like the Bradley that way, but different. I guess I'm still amazed at this technology. I had never made a good brisket, although
I have not really given it the attention required...until now. Having said that, my wife and I are paleo folk, so we tend to cook the dreaded grass fed stuff.
I've read some bad things about trying to smoke a grass fed brisket, but I tried it anyway. I smoked the point first to about 195. It was tasty but still chewy.
I then smoked the flat by lowering the temp way down to 160 overnight and finished off between 180 and 220. It took about 23 hours for the flat. It was also very tasty and also
tender, but not juicy despite that I had mopped it and finished off in foil above 180. I wrapped it in blankets in a cooler for 90 minutes as well. Not all grass fed
meat is equal, so I'm not giving up on it, but this was a defeat compared to what I wanted. I had trimmed fat off like I saw on brisket videos. If I try again, I will
not trim any off due to the grass fed problem, just to see how that goes. I will try the point again, and cook to 205 like I did the flat. Maybe brining? Attached a pic.
Anyway, I'll finally get on with creating my thread question.
