Well, I'm about 24 hours away from putting my PBC on Craigslist and moving on, because I just can't get the PBC to produce the flavor we (my family) all expect. Here's the problem:
When I grill chicken in a Weber kettle grill over Kingsford briquettes, we love it. It has a distinctive grilled flavor.
When I smoke chicken in a traditional bullet smoker with Kingsford briquettes and a handful of wood chips, plus a water pan between the coals and meat, we love it, as well. It has an awesome smoked flavor.
When I hang chicken in the PBC over Kingsford briquettes, however, with or without wood chips added, everyone at the table is a little disgusted by the grease smoke flavor. It's like I've ruined dinner, and I partially agree.
I've cooked chicken low and slow in the PBC (4hrs), hot and fast (2hrs 10 min) by cracking the lid periodically to heat up the coals, plus cooked some various times between those. Every single cook, whether it's two chickens cut in half, or 8 leg quarters like I did tonight, the high volume of dripping juices creates rolling grease fog pretty much constantly throughout the entire cook. And the sound... It's like I'm grilling burgers; Lots of dripping and sizzling going on.
As you can tell, I'm extremely frustrated with this. Either I'm doing something wrong, and it's creating all of this grease fog flavor, or that's just the way the PBC is. So here's what I need to know: Do you all get a different flavor from PBC-cooked meats than you get from smokers, or do you pretty much get what most people consider to be traditional smoked BBQ flavor?
I really need to know if I'm doing something wrong, or if this is just the way the PBC cooks. If the latter is the case, I probably need to stop fighting it, sell out and move on.
Your input will be sincerely appreciated.