New member from DFW

[ddoumani]

Always wanted a smoker and ended up buying a CampChef 24 and converted it to natural gas.

My first attempt was a chicken that came out great so I defrosted a big venison roast and tried my hand at a bacon mat, smoked it until internal was 140 and out came the most delicious piece of venison I have had.  It cut and ate like prime rib - very moist.  The bacon didn't crisp but I didn't expect it to either.

Then I decided to try Jerky with some Elk and Venison and both came out great.  Joined the forum to get more info and learn all I can.  Obviously a hunter and really want to get into my own processing and making sausage, summer sausage (pepperoni), etc....  I really like the versatility of the natural gas smoker, I can be smoking in less than 20 mins and time is important to me, using a all-wood smoker always seemed like so much work and effort and this affords me the flexibility to smoke without to much hassle.  Have a wireless 2-probe sensor and one I get my temp dialed in the smoker really is very low maintenance.

Also looking for info on mods, especially about sealing doors better to keep the smoke going vertical and not out the sides of the doors.

Here are some pics of my first attempts

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• ddoumani
• Dec 9, 2014

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• ddoumani
• Dec 9, 2014

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• ddoumani
• Dec 9, 2014

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• ddoumani
• Dec 9, 2014

 

[themule69]

Glad you joined the group. The search bar at the top of any page is your best friend.
About anything you wanna know about smoking/grilling/curing/brining/cutting or slicing
and the list goes on has probably been posted. Remember to post a QVIEW of your smokes.
We are all smoke junkies here and we have to get our fix. If you have questions
Post it and you will probably get 10 replies with 11 different answers. That is
because their are so many different ways to make great Q...

It all looks good. I am so glad to see someone that doesn't over cook wild game.
Happy smoken.
David

 

[gary s]

  Good morning and welcome to the forum, from a nice cool day in East Texas. Lots of great people with tons of information on just about  everything 

Good Job, looks good

Gary

 

[ddoumani]

Thanks for the welcome guys.  

I want to round out my gear with a good grinder and sausage stuffer.  I have a buy-once cry-once philosophy and spent the last week trying to pick what to get next.

I've seen a variety of grinders from Cabelas name brand, to older ones on Craigslist to um-teen others all over the internet.  From a duty perspective I'm thinking that the most volume I will ever do is 10lbs, maybe 15 at a time and am not sure if its best to get something like a LEM 5lb vertical suffer and a separate grinder, or a multi-purpose grinder/stuffer.  

From your experience is there a benefit for a multi-tool vs. separate or vice versa?  I've searched the site and didn't find a comprehensive thread on the options and the various threads were very much ford-chevy conversations.

I will be focused on snack sticks, sausage and summer sausage.  My jerky will always be whole muscle so nothing needed to consider there.  I don't want something that will take up the whole counter, but I do not want to sacrifice quality either.  Metal gears are a must (i think, I hear things about nylon but no facts to back it up)

Thoughts?  What have you had for years without failure?  What doesn't bind up and make a mess?