Hey guys. Just joined the forum (although I've been getting info from here for a while, you guys are great) and wanted to introduce myself. I'm in beautiful sonoma county california, where we have great produce and great meats.
I've been a restaurant cook for years and I'm really into getting tricky with food. Smoking, however, is brand new to me! I got a pretty cool grill/smoker combo for christmas and will be smoking at least a few times a week for the next little bit. I've been doing research for a few months now and i'm comfortable with all the tricky concepts that go into smoking and grilling. I'm looking foward to learning a lot from you guys and I'm loving getting my first hands on experience. I'll be posting some of the dishes I make and would greatly appreciate any criticisms, thoughts or ideas, I feel like it's a never ending science experiment! Everytime i make a dish I can always find something I could do to make it that much better. I have finished to 5-day smoking crash course offered here and have already started breaking in my new smoker.
It's a Smoke Hallow 7000cgs. It has a 3 burner propane grill with an infared searer on one side and a smoker with firebox on the other. Pretty cool machine, nothing pro, but seems to be fitting for us.
I had to do a few simple mods when i got this after i seasoned it up. The charcoal holder in the firebox is to big so I had to throw a grate on it so everything doesn't fall through.
There was also a pretty big gap (surprisingly) in betwen the lid and the racks, about a 1/4". on both the firebox and the smoker. Noticed a considerable amount of smoke escaping through there when i was seasoning it so I just removed the little gaskets in between them and it sealed up nice. No smoke leakage anywhere! here's the unacceptable gap
Anyway, so that's my setup for now. I've been making some stuff over the last few days that have turned out nice. I'll be posting some "q-view's" when I get a chance.
Cheers
I've been a restaurant cook for years and I'm really into getting tricky with food. Smoking, however, is brand new to me! I got a pretty cool grill/smoker combo for christmas and will be smoking at least a few times a week for the next little bit. I've been doing research for a few months now and i'm comfortable with all the tricky concepts that go into smoking and grilling. I'm looking foward to learning a lot from you guys and I'm loving getting my first hands on experience. I'll be posting some of the dishes I make and would greatly appreciate any criticisms, thoughts or ideas, I feel like it's a never ending science experiment! Everytime i make a dish I can always find something I could do to make it that much better. I have finished to 5-day smoking crash course offered here and have already started breaking in my new smoker.
It's a Smoke Hallow 7000cgs. It has a 3 burner propane grill with an infared searer on one side and a smoker with firebox on the other. Pretty cool machine, nothing pro, but seems to be fitting for us.
I had to do a few simple mods when i got this after i seasoned it up. The charcoal holder in the firebox is to big so I had to throw a grate on it so everything doesn't fall through.
There was also a pretty big gap (surprisingly) in betwen the lid and the racks, about a 1/4". on both the firebox and the smoker. Noticed a considerable amount of smoke escaping through there when i was seasoning it so I just removed the little gaskets in between them and it sealed up nice. No smoke leakage anywhere! here's the unacceptable gap
Anyway, so that's my setup for now. I've been making some stuff over the last few days that have turned out nice. I'll be posting some "q-view's" when I get a chance.
Cheers