Upgrading to Gucci smoking-please be gentle

[lightmyfire]

I am old school on smoking.  I have had my charcoal grill about 30 years (2/32" steel).  No it has not rusted out.  I just throw in charcoal and some hickory wood chunks-let it cool down put on the meat , fritz it with concentrated apple juice and vinegar, close the lid and wait.  After joining the meat forum and reading hundreds of posts, I am going Gucci smoking.I will still use ole iron-side until the smoke forum issues my Gucci license.  Form the post I have read, I have  an algorithm

to use as my rite of passage:

1. Major intended use-Smoke homemade sausages, fish and cheese. 

2. Purchase equipment

            A. Homemade smoke generator for cold smoking

            B. Buy a MES 40 , the XL propane or the Smoke Hollow 38202G (28x19x47 Chamber size) all recommendations on this

                will be greatly appreciated

            C. Buy a maverick 732 dual 6' probe.  If the MES 40 is purchased will I still need the Maverick 732 for more temp accuracy?

Action Plan

1.Cold Smoke the sausage in my homemade smoker then cook the sausages low and slow

2. Invite friends over for homemade smoke sausage  salmon and potatoes

This is the plan gleaned from the many threads on our forum.  Please provide your comments and or recommendations but please be gentle-this is my first time. If the forum advise that my plan is only good for kindling, I can take it like a man and go to plan B

Thanks Lightmyfire.

 

[bmaddox]

Here is the approach I would take:

MES 40 (either Gen 1 or Gen 2.5) with an AMNPS for cold smoking.

Maverick probe thermo (732, 733, or 735 will all work) because the MES thermo's are never correct.

I don't smoke fish, but from what I have read you might want to look into a separate fish smoker to prevent your sausage from tasting like salmon (Something basic like the Little Chief should work great)

That is it. Pretty simple and will allow you to cold and hot smoke.

 

[timberjet]

I can't comment on much here as I am a charcoal smoker. I use all Weber stuff except for my  55 gallon drum smoker. If you do happen to get an MES you will need the Maverick. The factory therms are junk. Just what kind of rig do you have? If you want a really good smoker that works right out of the box you might want to look at a Weber Smoky Mountain. If you do switch to electric you will need some type of smoke generator. It seems everyone eventually get's one. Specifically asking do you make your own sausage or are you buying store bought and smoking it? I use my Weber Kettle most of the time for every day smoking and it is my goto smoker. Yes smoker. When I am doing a big turkey or Butt or a bunch of ribs I go to my UDS or ugly drum smoker which works flawlessly I might add for under 200 bucks and will smoke meat without tending for 27 hours or more. I don't know what I would call Gucci about any of that or any of the options you provided. To me that would be a thousand dollar ceramic smoker or a big offset that you need a semi to haul around.

 

[timberjet]

Ok I see you are making your own sausage. If you make cured sausages you can start low and smoke for a long time. I would get an MES or something similar for doing that. I make do with what I have and it can be a pain but I get it done. I do have a little cheif I use for fish and the beginning stages of my cured sausage smokes and other stuff like jerky and what not. It seems an MES 40 would be a pretty good bet for this kind of smoking. You didn't mention what kind of capacity you are looking for though.

 

[bbqbrett]

lightmyfire, are you not happy with how you are doing things now or just want to try something new?

Sounds like you can do a lot of what you want with what you got anyways. I agree with bmaddox though and maybe get a separate smoker for the fish.