# Weber Smokey Mountain



## agent75

Hi all

I've decided to look for a WSM as an upgrade over my ECB style bullet smoker, which is a nightmare to maintain temp and burns through fuel. 

Can anyone recommend good places to look? There's a 37cm one on a website at £210 just now, but it's missing the thermometer and is the same size as my current smoker, so no ability to get lots of meat in at once. 

Any thoughts or suggestions welcomed. 

Keith.


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## agent75

I've since changed my mind regarding the WSM, and am now looking at ProQ smokers. 

Are they any good?


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## sotv

I have been using the ProQ Frontier Elite this summer after upgrading my Brinkmann. Very happy with it, it is well sealed, keeps a decent temperature over the cook, if quality charcoal/beads are used. It has good air control vents on the bottom and 2 racks easily allow me to cook up to 8 ribs in 2 rack holders and a 2-3kg pork shoulder at once. If you ever needed more size it is expandable by buying an extra stacker unit. When cold smoking it will hold 4 sides of salmon flat or 6 x 1kg pieces of bacon. It has a handy hook system that hangs from the lid, but it's the only thing I am not convinced about it, as my mackerel came off during cooking. Although that was more my fault than a design fault. I have sucessfully cooked pizzas on it using the pizza stone you can get. 

I got mine from https://hotsmoked.co.uk/smokers/charcoal-smokers.html  including the cold smoker set for it. There is usually a 10% discount about if you google it, or as I did, just email them asking for it. This was the best price I could find at the time. Not sure if can be got any cheaper elsewhere now as it is coming to the end of summer. If you are keeping it outside, worth buying the cover for it also.


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## agent75

Good info there sotv. Many thanks.


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## agent75

I pulled the trigger on a frontier elite at the weekend. It arrives tomorrow. Praying for better weather!


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## sotv

This wet July and August can't continue much longer hopefully. There are meant to be signs of it warming up a bit towards late August/September according to the MetO,

Hope you get as much enjoyment from your ProQ model as I do. Did you get the cold smoking set to go with it also?


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## wade

Agent75 said:


> I pulled the trigger on a frontier elite at the weekend. It arrives tomorrow. Praying for better weather!


The ProQs are great smokers and you will be able to do some good cooks on it. I have the 43cm ProQ too.

I have the ProQ cold smoking spiral too but I must admit to preferring the AMNPS smoke generator. The ProQ cold smoker works fine but it is limited to using dust and I found it a little unreliable. Others may have different experiences. It also does not last as long as the larger pellet generator.













ProQ Minion.jpg



__ wade
__ Jul 14, 2016






A couple of Kg of good quality briquettes in the ProQ will give you a stable cooking temperature of 110 C for 8+ hours.


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## agent75

I didn't get the cold smoking unit. Perhaps once I've perfected hot smoking. 

Seasoning the proq as I type this, dumped half a chimney of lumpwood in and the temp roared past anything I could have achieved on my POS old smoker. I think I'll need to recalibrate my mind as to how I maintain temp. 

Incredibly impressed so far.


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## agent75

I decided to fire up the ProQ today and try it out. Got a pork shoulder on with pit beans underneath. Unfortunately the heavens just opened. I've put the unit in my greenhouse (no plants in it), hopefully all goes well! 

I'll pop some photos on later if it's not a disaster.


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## agent75

IMG_7478.JPG



__ agent75
__ Aug 18, 2017






I only got a chance to snap the remains after we'd eaten, but I was impressed with the capabilities of the ProQ. 

I managed 16 drumsticks, 2.7kg of pork shoulder, pork belly and pit beans.


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## sotv

All looks lovely, how did you find the Temperature control during the cook?


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## james burton

wade said:


> The ProQs are great smokers and you will be able to do some good cooks on it. I have the 43cm ProQ too.
> 
> I have the ProQ cold smoking spiral too but I must admit to preferring the AMNPS smoke generator. The ProQ cold smoker works fine but it is limited to using dust and I found it a little unreliable. Others may have different experiences. It also does not last as long as the larger pellet generator.
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> ProQ Minion.jpg
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> __ wade
> __ Jul 14, 2016
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> A couple of Kg of good quality briquettes in the ProQ will give you a stable cooking temperature of 110 C for 8+ hours.



Hi Wade,

please, can you confirm what charcoal you use? I'm going to be cooking a brisket on Thursday night from 11 pm until Friday afternoon and currently use restaurant grade charcoal but don't want to be adding it through the night if possible.

Thanks


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## wade

Hi James
I use Heat Beads almost exclusively as they give long consistent burn time. The good quality coconut briquettes work well too. For flavour I use hardwood pellets - usually Hickory. Here is a photo of the ProQ fire basket from one of the BBQ classes I give, showing it set up for Minion burning. In it I am demonstrating both pellets and wood chunks however in practice you would use one or the other. Using this method will take about 45 minutes to slowly get the smoker up to temperature (110 C) however once there it will stay constant for ~8 hours.


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