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Originally Posted By: Dave
Besides maintaining your smoker's temp level, you will need to maintain your own fluid intake. I recommend a garage fridge to keep your, uhh, fluids in for easy and quick access. A comfortable lawn chair is also essential for the proper monitoring and maintenance of a smoker's temp level.


Being a non drinker I have a different mindset... I try to out-smoke my smoker. smile


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Quote:
1. I ran out of beer about halfway through. I have no excuse.


These things happen. That would be when you say to your wife "Honey, could you go pick up a 12 for me? I would go myself but its critical that I monitor and maintain the smoker's temp.".

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jc -

Instead of beer can chicken, buy a chicken throne. Fill it with chicken broth/stock, garlic, and black pepper. Smoke at 350 until internal temp of 160. Perfect and juicy every time.

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Also, did the meatloaf yesterday. Lights out good. We will be adding it to the rotation.

If anyone is interested google "traeger not your mama's meatloaf". I followed the recipe exactly except added some minced garlic. Super easy, super good.

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Originally Posted By: Rishuz
jc -

Instead of beer can chicken, buy a chicken throne. Fill it with chicken broth/stock, garlic, and black pepper. Smoke at 350 until internal temp of 160. Perfect and juicy every time.


There's just not enough redneck in that method.


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I’ve been doing Steve Raichlens root beer can recipe from his “beer can chicken” cookbook using cornish game hens. It is outstanding - if you can find the small 8oz cans of root beer that works best, but you can wedge one into a 12 ounce can. The marinade is amazing.


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I like beer can chicken.


A note on a fire starter. I agree, don't use lighter fluid.

I do make my own to get things going. 50% grain alcohol....a grain based product, and olive oil, a veggie based product.


It will help you start the fire easily and doesn't leave a after taste. You cook with alcohol at times and you cook with olive oil at times. Combine the two and you have a good fire starter. The alcohol fires up quickly, the oil burns, but burns slower to get the lump fired up.


Try it. You can pay me later. A couple of beers work. I have learned a few tricks over the years.


By the time the coals are ready the oil is long gone.


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Originally Posted By: Ballpeen
I like beer can chicken.


A note on a fire starter. I agree, don't use lighter fluid.

I do make my own to get things going. 50% grain alcohol....a grain based product, and olive oil, a veggie based product.


It will help you start the fire easily and doesn't leave a after taste. You cook with alcohol at times and you cook with olive oil at times. Combine the two and you have a good fire starter. The alcohol fires up quickly, the oil burns, but burns slower to get the lump fired up.


Try it. You can pay me later. A couple of beers work. I have learned a few tricks over the years.


By the time the coals are ready the oil is long gone.


Thanks! I definitely didn't have any trouble getting it started. The straw firestarters worked great. I just didn't sit and wait long enough for the heat to settle. I'm trying a mini-smoke session again this week in order to burn through the rest of the (wrong) wood I bought before I switch over to the correct stuff. When I get through this bag of briquettes, I'll switch over to lump and see if I need any extra help to get that going.


There is no level of sucking we haven't seen; in fact, I'm pretty sure we hold the patents on a few levels of sucking NOBODY had seen until the past few years.

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Quote:
Thanks! I definitely didn't have any trouble getting it started. The straw firestarters worked great. I just didn't sit and wait long enough for the heat to settle.


That's a good learning point. You want the smoker up to temp and the smoke to appear "thin and blue" before you put any meat on. If you have white puffy smoke, it's not ready. This can take around 30-60 minutes depending on the weather conditions. Another tip to avoid stale smoke is to keep the upper vent wide open and control the temp from the bottom. Good airflow is key.


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Yeah, I was curious that the smoker manual said that both the top AND bottom vents would increase temps when open. I would think the top vents would vent more than they would get oxygen to the fire below.


There is no level of sucking we haven't seen; in fact, I'm pretty sure we hold the patents on a few levels of sucking NOBODY had seen until the past few years.

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Originally Posted By: oobernoober
Yeah, I was curious that the smoker manual said that both the top AND bottom vents would increase temps when open. I would think the top vents would vent more than they would get oxygen to the fire below.




That oxygen really sucks in that small vent. Acts like a blow torch. That top vent is going to suck air. Restricting the bottom is still going to suck in the air. It's just going to concentrate it and make it burn hotter to fire the coals.

I may not be explaining it properly, but if you open the bottom vents wide open, you just aren't going to create that blow torch effect.


Open you mouth and breath in a normal amount of air. It comes in slow. Now pucker your lips like you are going to whistle and suck in the same amount of air. It come in much faster. That creates the burn.

Once you have a good fire, open the bottom vets a bit to lower the heat and preserve your coals longer.


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I smoked some pork butt, and it came out pretty decent.

I'll tell you what, though. It was a struggle. I think a lot of that stemmed from the amount of meat I had on there. 8 lbs. I cut it in 2-pieces and put 1 on the bottom grate and one on the top, but it didn't seem to help. So next time I'll get a smaller cut. Also, I think I added too much water to the pan. I don't fill that thing all the way up, but it's pretty close. I say that because I struggled to maintain high enough temp pretty much the whole time. It also took FOREVER. I started at 9am and didn't finish up until 2am. Luckily we had burger meat as backup to throw on the grill.


There is no level of sucking we haven't seen; in fact, I'm pretty sure we hold the patents on a few levels of sucking NOBODY had seen until the past few years.

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LOL....it shouldn't take that long. Remember, you can always add more water or wine if it boils offs...also, when smoking something fairly large, you have to start at a early hour....maybe late the night before or around 4am


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I usually figure 1.5 hours per pound, so an 8lb pork butt is about 12 hours at 225. 2am isn’t too far off in terms of smoking. Are you sure your thermometer you are measuring pit temp is right? I’d not trust the one built into the smoker, get a descent external one (Wi-Fi ones are nice) that shows food and pit temp. I’m also not a fan of breaking the cut into smaller pieces, there is a lot more likelihood of drying out the meat.


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I went in knowing that I had too much meat on the smoker... but I was hoping by cutting the portion in half and putting it on like that (in two pieces instead of 1 giant one) I could cut down on cooking time. The fact it still took that long isn't really the troublesome part.

It's that I struggled bigtime to keep my internal smoker temp up. There was a good long while that I was struggling to keep it up over 200. I read that having a lot of meat cooking "sucks up the heat" which can drop your smoker's temp. I also read that a lot of people don't put water in the water pan, but instead put lava rocks. I'm wondering why that is, and if it would've helped me with my temperature issues.


There is no level of sucking we haven't seen; in fact, I'm pretty sure we hold the patents on a few levels of sucking NOBODY had seen until the past few years.

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Originally Posted By: columbusdawg
I usually figure 1.5 hours per pound, so an 8lb pork butt is about 12 hours at 225. 2am isn’t too far off in terms of smoking. Are you sure your thermometer you are measuring pit temp is right? I’d not trust the one built into the smoker, get a descent external one (Wi-Fi ones are nice) that shows food and pit temp. I’m also not a fan of breaking the cut into smaller pieces, there is a lot more likelihood of drying out the meat.


I had the same thought regarding the thermometer on the top of the smoker. I had both of my probes in food, so I couldn't check the weber one, but I will next time.


There is no level of sucking we haven't seen; in fact, I'm pretty sure we hold the patents on a few levels of sucking NOBODY had seen until the past few years.

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