Cowracer
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# Posted: 6 Jan 2017 10:02am - Edited by: Cowracer
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First off, I have never smoked anything in my life (at least meat-wise). I have friends who do, and it seems like a big fuss and requires more patience than I have. We camp with some friends who have a Green Mountain Grills pellet smoker, and after seeing one in use, I asked and got one for Christmas. I got the small, travel-size "Davy Crockett" model, on sale for $299. It seems a bit pricy, but what you get is a well thought out system that is very well made.
If you are not up on pellet smokers, it uses hardwood pellets that look suspiciously like rabbit food.
The smokers have a hopper to hold about 15 lbs of pellets and a small auger that feeds them into the firebox. A small fan is also present to feed air to the fire. These grills do require electricity to run, but mine included adaptors to plug into 110vac wall current, 12vdc from a car lighter outlet, and a set of battery terminal clamps where you can come directly off a car battery.
The GMG smokers also have WiFi in them, so you can monitor temps from your cell phone either directly over short distances, or if you have internet, you can monitor them from anywhere. I actually started my smoker at 7:30 am while laying in bed in my cabin. You can tell it what temp you want (anywhere from 150 to 550 degrees) and it will alert you when it gets to that temp.
I'm a controls and automation engineer, so I was curious how well the temperature controller would work. I will give them credit. I set it at 250, it overshot by about 4 degrees on the initial run-up, then held within 2 degrees from that point on. You could hear the fan and auger start and stop as required to maintain temp. Because the temp regulation is so good, you can bake in it as well. Anything you can do in your home oven can be done on the grill. I have yet to try them, but I have heard that smoked chocolate-chip cookies are divine.
For my first-ever attempt at smoking, I selected an 8lb pork butt. Due to the fact that I got a late start (easy to oversleep in the cabin) I cut it into 2 four-pound butts, so they would be done on time. I rubbed them with my buddies recipe of spices, tied them off with some butchers twine to hold it together and put them on the grate when it got to 250 degrees. There is a meat temp probe that you insert into the meat, and I set the alert on my phone for 195.
And that was it. I never had to touch them again. I wish I could share the smell with you guys. I bought the blend of pellets that the guy at the BBQ store recommended. I think there is some cherry and some mesquite in there. It truly smelled heavenly. I got them on the grill at about 8:00 in the morning and they were fully done at about 2:30. The grill used just over half a hopper of pellets, and it was a relatively cool day. I thought the pellet use was acceptable.
When they were done, I pulled them off the grill, wrapped them securely in a couple layers of heavy-duty foil and put them in a cooler (not on ice) for about an hour and a half to rest. When it was about time for dinner, I unwrapped them, untied the strings and used some plastic "bear claws" (my other Christmas present) to shred (or "pull") the pork.
The resulting tray of pork was some of the best I have ever had. I love good BBQ and smoked meat, but I always preferred to let someone else cook them, because I never figured I would be able to do it properly. But this was truly done properly. Moist, tender, succulent. With a good smoke flavor and a nice crispy outer layer. MMmmmm. Fantastic! It almost felt like cheating because it was so easy.
If you ever wanted to get into smoking meats, but never wanted all the bother, a pellet smoker is the way to go.
Tim
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