Hello one and all!
Got my first smoker 2 days ago and then went looking for someplace to help me learn how to make it do its magic.
Living in Central Florida, we can cook outdoors year round. I've owned some kind of grill for over 20 years now and use it at least once a week year round. Grilled with Weber and charcoal for many many moons and then got seduced to the dark side and went gas with my grill; discovering at the time that I preferred the convenience of gas although I still prefer the taste of food off a charcoal grill.
Earlier in the summer I toyed around with the idea of replacing my gas grill. every time I started looking at gas grills, there was this odd gravitational pull towards the smokers. I finally decided to split the difference budget wise .. ordered new burners for the grill (an older Vermont Castings), got a friend of mine who does sheet metal work to fabricate a few of the frame parts that were in less than great working order (my daughter the nursing student called it a case of tetanus waiting to happen) .. and re-engineered some of the other internals myself.
I decided not to spend a ton of money on my first smoker, and after some research picked up a 2 door Master Forge gas smoker from Lowes, some 3/8 insulation rope from my friendly Ace Hardware man (I did my research :-), and ordered a Maverick ET732 dual thermometer. The insulation was harder to find locally than I thought. The Lowes and Home Depot near me initially had no idea what I was talking about. Turns out they didn't have it - at best it was seasonal. Fortunately there is an older Ace Hardware near where I live that is a REAL hardware store that has the kind of stuff you sometimes don't find in the big box stores, and a couple of guys working there who can tell you exactly how to use whateevr it is you're buying. They knew what I was looking for and understood exactly why I wanted it.
Fast forward ... the smoker is assembled - that was easy enough. The insulation rope is on the doors. A dab of the the Loctite red I used to put the insulation on the door is still stuck to my chest despite my best efforst to get it off.I gfigure it will wear off eventually. I fired teh smoker up yesterday and did the burn in/seasoning ... played around with how to achieve a couple of different temperatures.
Now I have a lot of reading to do. My goal is to eventually make ribs, chicken and other things that grown men would fight over. I'm sure that is a process learned over time.
I do have one question. For anyone who has the Master Forge gas smoker from Lowes, Where did you route the wires for your thermometer probes? When I seasoned the smoker, I routed them through the chimney. The only other choices appeared to be:
Got my first smoker 2 days ago and then went looking for someplace to help me learn how to make it do its magic.
Living in Central Florida, we can cook outdoors year round. I've owned some kind of grill for over 20 years now and use it at least once a week year round. Grilled with Weber and charcoal for many many moons and then got seduced to the dark side and went gas with my grill; discovering at the time that I preferred the convenience of gas although I still prefer the taste of food off a charcoal grill.
Earlier in the summer I toyed around with the idea of replacing my gas grill. every time I started looking at gas grills, there was this odd gravitational pull towards the smokers. I finally decided to split the difference budget wise .. ordered new burners for the grill (an older Vermont Castings), got a friend of mine who does sheet metal work to fabricate a few of the frame parts that were in less than great working order (my daughter the nursing student called it a case of tetanus waiting to happen) .. and re-engineered some of the other internals myself.
I decided not to spend a ton of money on my first smoker, and after some research picked up a 2 door Master Forge gas smoker from Lowes, some 3/8 insulation rope from my friendly Ace Hardware man (I did my research :-), and ordered a Maverick ET732 dual thermometer. The insulation was harder to find locally than I thought. The Lowes and Home Depot near me initially had no idea what I was talking about. Turns out they didn't have it - at best it was seasonal. Fortunately there is an older Ace Hardware near where I live that is a REAL hardware store that has the kind of stuff you sometimes don't find in the big box stores, and a couple of guys working there who can tell you exactly how to use whateevr it is you're buying. They knew what I was looking for and understood exactly why I wanted it.
Fast forward ... the smoker is assembled - that was easy enough. The insulation rope is on the doors. A dab of the the Loctite red I used to put the insulation on the door is still stuck to my chest despite my best efforst to get it off.I gfigure it will wear off eventually. I fired teh smoker up yesterday and did the burn in/seasoning ... played around with how to achieve a couple of different temperatures.
Now I have a lot of reading to do. My goal is to eventually make ribs, chicken and other things that grown men would fight over. I'm sure that is a process learned over time.
I do have one question. For anyone who has the Master Forge gas smoker from Lowes, Where did you route the wires for your thermometer probes? When I seasoned the smoker, I routed them through the chimney. The only other choices appeared to be:
- Routing through the vents near the bottom (that seemed like it would be too far away; I don't think the wires on the probes were long enough)
- Making a new opening (I decided to avoid that one unless I ran into a large number of people who could tell me they made it work)
