The Weber smokey mountain is the type I bought many years ago and never used. That's the type my dad had and you had to pay too much attention to it for my liking.
Although, now being retired, it probably wouldn't be so bad. Kinda wish I'd have kept it.
I just picked up another weber smokey mountain today for $100 on Facebook marketplace. I have all 3 sizes now. And the guy was a BBQ nut like me. He had about 15 other smokers, all rare webers.
If you don't really care to make top notch BBQ a trager is great. My wife wants one for Christmas that she can play around with too. Can use the app on her phone and even bake in the thing. But you won't get much for bark and the cooks take way longer. Just look at pics comparing the differences. The bark isnt really set on them and they are very light red. Not the deep dark candied bark that you look for. I cooked burnt ends on a trager last weekend and will be cooking burnt ends on a pit tomorrow. The difference in quality and texture will be night and day.
I usually wrap using aluminum foil. Once the bark has set in and it's halfway through it's water loss cycle I wrap it. If you wrap too early your bark becomes soggy and you boil your meat. If you wrap too late the outside gets a touch dry.
As far as rubs vs wet, you smoke with a rub and finish either dry or wet. I usually finish wet. Finishing is just a final glaze and throwing it on the heat again to let it tighten up for 5 to 15 minutes. If you wrapped too soon you can leave it on longer to try and tighten up the bark a little.
But smoking is an artwork. It can be a passion for you or you can be the group of wives that get drunk on wine and paint for something to do on a weekend. Only you can decide which way of the fork you take.
Ps, you only have to pay attention to it if you don't know what you're doing yet. The WSM and ceramic cookers like the green egg are the most consistent cookers on the market. Literally set it and forget it, the temp gauge doesn't move. But you have to know what you're doing. Otherwise you will be chasing your tail for 8 hours. They make dummy proof electronic control units for them too but they are far from necessary.
Weber is a water smoker, so the temp above the water is rock solid and consistent . Mine runs for 10-12 hours on a full load of charcoal and doesn’t require any babysitting.
Great smoker that you don’t need to outgrow.
Start with pork butt or ribs and a good thermometer or thermometer systems and fruitwoods for pork.
Don’t jump into a brisket, that’s advance level. When I see someone does a full brisket in 6-8 hours it’s not gonna be as good as one done right….
I buy bulk spices and make my own rubs.
Also you can rest meats for a really long time in a cooler wrapped in towels etc, so don’t get fixated on timing things. Smoke early.
Good luck
I owned a Big Green Egg for 10+ years and had no complaints other than it didn’t hold temp as accurately as I'd like and you're limited time wise by the amount of wood chunks or charcoal you stuff into it.
Last summer I bought a RecTeq and it's awesome, the thing almost runs itself.
I like it so well that I sold the Egg and my gas grill and just use this for everything.
They really work well. My favorite is to do overnight briskets. I put it on at 180F at 9pm and go to bed, in the morning I wrap it and let it go until it's done. The BBQ has a meat thermometer built into it's wifi interface. When the meat is XXX temp, it alerts you on your phone. If you're away from the house, you can change the temp settings from the Traeger phone app.
I also use the Meat Church products and just follow the directions. Watch this one on the "weekday overnight brisket".
I found myself drooling when I heard that paper rattling as he unwrapped that brisket. I've only had brisket once and it was at the airport in Dallas Texas. They sliced off a generous helping into a crusty bun and applied some mustard.
Well you don’t only cook red meat but birds are awesome too on the joe or egg. Happy thanksgiving! Best darn bird you’ll ever have. just as moist if injected and slowly smoked as oil friers! That’s 185 -200 for 8 hours! Before (dry rubbed and injected) and at 163! One hour to go! The stall is about finished. By the way this is my 6th night in a row smoking. Kamados are expensive but if you use the often and right they cost nothing accept $10.00 a week. We did stuffed crust smoke chicken pizza last night topped with a bacon woven bread sticks.
Well you don’t only cook red meat but birds are awesome too on the joe or egg. Happy thanksgiving! Best darn bird you’ll ever have. just as moist if injected and slowly smoked as oil friers! That’s 185 -200 for 8 hours! Before (dry rubbed and injected) and at 163! One hour to go! The stall is about finished. By the way this is my 6th night in a row smoking. Kamados are expensive but if you use the often and right they cost nothing accept $10.00 a week. We did stuffed crust smoke chicken pizza last night topped with a bacon woven bread sticks.
Here is what I'm rockin, a buddy of mine made a couple of smokers and I got one off of him here are a couple of pics of them, we brought them together to have a big feast. Made some jerk chicken. And smoked steaks.
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It looks like I love smoked chicken cause here's another pic of smoked chicken.
The stainless piece on the right comes off as needed. The copper on the left is the chimney.
This is the charcoal basket. This one is pretty heavy duty. My last one was a lot less stout and it lasted over 20 years so obviously it doesn't need to be this HD.
These are the temp adjusters, there are 4 of them. Need more heat, open 1 to 4 of them up. Need less heat close'em up. Normally once the temp settles in you don't touch them. On my last one I used Gorilla tape, this one is pretty fancy in comparison.
The homemade smokers look good.
MX-Z Man, the one you have looks alot like one I seen at an ace hardware. $1000.
WTF
I'll go back next week and get some pics.
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