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mcgrvy

Newbie
Original poster
May 8, 2007
7
10
Lexington, SC
Kick ass site!

I just bought a Char-Grill Double Door offset Smoker/BBQ/Grill. Absolutely love it. First meal was 1.5 inch, dry aged rib eyes, about 16 oz each, smoked with a bit of hickory. 475 to 500 degrees and 7 minutes on one side and 5 on the other. Perfect medium rare. For sides I made a foil wrap of sliced potatoes, diced onions, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper and some BBQ seasoning and heated the wrap up over the lump hardwood coals for about 15 minutes then moved the wrap to the cool side of the unit for another 20 minutes. Fantastic carmelization. Also threw some water soaked corn on the cob off to the side and cooked them for about 15-20 minutes turning every so often. Then melted some butter with finely chopped garlic and salt and mixed that with some BBQ seasoning and drizzled that over everything. Wife claimed it was one of the best meals she's ever had.

Today I cooked up a pepperoni pizza in it. Turned out great. Just like a wood burning oven. Next I'm going to try and add a little smoke and see what that does.

I want to do a pork butt tomorrow (got a solid plan from this forum) but the lack of a baffle on my smoker has me worried. The temp change between the 2 sides of the smoker is like 30 - 40 degrees with the one closest to the offset box obviously being hotter. Should I just stick the butt in the middle and keep an average temp of 225 - 230 between the 2 sides and turn it around every so often? Or is there a quick fix to design a baffle?

Any help would be much appreciated.

So glad I found this site....
 
welcome to SMF

i dont know about your baffle but i do know that if you want to smoke that butt, your temp right in the middle is perfect. 225*
 
Welcome McGrvy, It is nice to have you on the forum. Please feel free to share your adventures and to draw knowledge from the many kind folks on this forum.
 
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Welcome to the SMF
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welcome welocome welcome to SMF you'll like this place a lot.. as far as your cooker ....cook now figure the mods later then you'll know what mods are needed..pork butts are really forgiving peices of meat, never had a bad one just some better than others, and they just keep getting better as time goes on.
 
Welcome to the SMF McGrvy. You should be fine putting the butt in the middle. Just try to put a thermo at rack level there so you know what your running at. Like Linescum said, butts are very forgiving piece of meat and I think perfect for your first smoke. Good luck and let us know how it goes!!
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Take some pics if you can....we love food porn here.
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Glad you found us.
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Thank You all very much. I pulled an all nighter smoking the 9lb Picnic and was it ever worth it. I used Jeff's rub and a variation of SoFlaQuer's finishing sauce and it came out great. All your advice paid off big time.

Tonight I smoked a meatloaf and again, possibly the best I ever had. Even my wife liked it and she's not a fan of meatloaf at all. I smoked it at 250 degrees with Lump Charcoal and Mesquite. Here's the recipe for anyone interested. It's not your avg meatloaf, but it tastes great...

1.5lbs ground beef
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup ketchup
1 packet of Ranch dressing mix
3/4 cup of dried stuffing mix
6oz can of fried onions
Couple good doses of Worcestershire
A few shakes of Garlic and Onion Powder
20 or so turns on a pepper mill

Mix all the above ingredients but save a few of the fried onions to put on the top later. Then smoke until it hits 150 degrees. Then top with...

the rest of the fried onions
a healthy dose of shredded cheddar cheese
Jeff's BBQ sauce

Finish smoking to 160 degrees. It only takes about 1.5 hours in my smoker. Thanks again all! Love my new hobby!!!
 
Sorry I haven't sent any pictures along. I'll get that up and going... there'll be plenty of opportunities ahead.
 
welcome & aloha sounds good i have yet to smoke a meatloaf- mine are good ( according to folks) out of the oven & currently working on basically a cake pan w/ bent ends w/ holes to accomodate smoke but save the juice- of course i use mushroom soup ,chicken broth, & lipton onion soup mix)- so the gravy it makes w/ the burger fat cannot spill.
 
Sounds great gypsyseagod. I was curious how to put the meatloaf in the smoker so that the smoke would get to it. I figure a flat pan is the best. But I simply used a loaf pan and let the smoke only come in from the top. I got a nice smoke ring on the top layer, where the cheese, fried onions and BBQ sauce was. Then the bottom part you had a mild smoky flavor with the great taste of the ingredients. It turned out to be a nice contrast. Plus if I drilled a few holes in my wife's pan, she'd kill me.
 
This is what I like to see...Pull up your boot straps and jump right in! When I do meatloaf I buy disposable aluminum pans and I use one bigger than the loaf so the smoke can get at the sides too. Once it has gotten to hamburger looking stage I take it out of the pan and direct on grate. Most of the juice has rendered by this point.
 
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