Posted by bbq doc on October 29, 1996 at 05:40:10:
In Reply to: Re: Barbecue with a Big Cooker posted by markh on October 24, 1996 at 18:56:39:
: : I've been cooking barbecue in the back yard for a while
: : in a Weber smoky mountain bullet, and my products are much
: : better than restaurant bbq. I use charcoal and wood chunks.
: : So I bought a 280 gallon drum converted to a cooker.
The
: : bbq is not as as good, using the same recipes.
: : I add burned off wood and charcoal about every hour to
: : control the temp, use water pans in the cooker, and indirect heat.
: : What kind of a big cooker will give you top
:
: notch results, just like cooking in the back yard with charcoal
: : or wood? Hopefully it's automated so you can walk away
: : from it for a while.
: : -doc
:
: I like the Backwoods Smoker made in Shreveport by Mike
: McGowan. Pau
l Hood won MIM two years ago using the large size with the
: Rebel Roasters-Wildfire team, remember? They come in three sizes,
: the least of which is very small. I have a medium that will cook three
: shoulders at a time. No way to get a h
og in the medium tho, that would
: require the large size.
: The smokers resemble refrigerators in that they are constructed
: vertically with a fire box in the bottom with a water pan between the
: firebox and the smoking chamber. They ar
e insulated for year-round
: cooking (here they really shine for Thanksgiving and Christmas cooking),
: and have channels in the walls that force the smoke up to the
: top and back down to the water pan level; the smoke then exits near the
:
top of the smoker at the back. When I cook ribs, which usually takes
: around 5-6 hours, I only add charcoal once.
: Mike's phone number is 318-425-1178 if you want a brochure or just to
: talk about BBQ for awhile.
: markh
Mark,
Than ks for info.
I got my 280 gallon cooker to work a lot better, by putting a tin sheet between
the charcoal and the grid. A lot of air was coming in
through the lid, and the sheet blocks it off from going to the charcoal.
So now, I can load the
cooker with a lot of charcoal, and control the temperature
with the air vents, and run for hours without adding fuel. My modification
makes the temperature very controllable, and everyone else that has a cooker
like mine can't control the temp
erature this way.
My cooker cost $600 new and it's built on a trailer. I called your
friend and his cooker is $2200 without wheels. His has about 350 lbs
meat capacity. Mine has about 220 lb capacity. Anyway I think I got a
pretty good de
al. Thanks for the help, and I got a pretty clever way
now to make a $600 cooker perform like a $2000 cooker.
-doc