You guys are making me homesick for Kansas City with all this talk about smokers! I used to have a bunch of friends there who participated in a number of the local BBQ competitions (2-day events). I remember visiting them during other parts of the year for the "practice" sessions in the back yard. Nothing like perfectly smoked beef brisket!
Of course, for these guys, if you hadn't built your own smoker, you were an amateur! I never got into it that much except as a spectator, however, since being here and not being able to get decent BBQ or cajun food, building one has crossed my mind. I know you can, to some extent, fake it with a gas grill if you set it up right (I have a pretty good one), but as SnS points out, it isn't really the same.
At the very least, unless you've got a covered grill, you lose a lot of the benefits of grilling in the first place. We use ours at least twice a week for regular meals year around (rain, sleet, snow, whatever...), but I lost the battle to convince my father-in-law to get one with a cover. I have tried to use it several times with some beautiful pieces of meat, but I can't stand it!
For the way I grill (and the things I cook), I can't see how having one of the countertop models would work for me. It looks like a nice idea, but how does it really work in practice? Doesn't it smoke up the whole house? Again, because it doesn't have a cover, I can't see how it would work quite as well in maintaining a radiant heat all around.
I guess I should also say that I use propane with my gas grill, so it's a bit hotter than the normal bottles of butane they sell here for grills. It's rated for it, so I just made a new hose with a regulator that fits the patio gas bottles of propane. They make propane for the "standard" one, but it's hard to find. You certainly can't cook year-round on butane either!
Interesting stuff.
SnS, do you use your smoker very much?
Topic: Barbecues & Smokers (How to Get that Smoked Taste) ( 10,734 )
