Smokers,Grills,Barbecues

Hello again, I was asked by some of my readers what I thought the best smokers, grills and barbecues are.

So, I thought about how I might answer such a broad question, this could take weeks months maybe yrs. OK I’m not doing yrs. but I have been for about 3 months gathering info just for all of you, so let’s start out by saying these are the ones I think rock, but your opinion might be different. I will explain what each one can do and then tell you the choices I have for each either by name or performance. here we go.

Barbecuing

Barbecuing cooks your food by charcoal or wood sometime gas like propane, wood pellets wood chips, even firewood/

This is the perfect way to cook that thick cut of steak or pork even if it was pounded with a meat hammer, (I call the tender maker), and you could if the barbecue is deep enough barbecuing a turkey. The barbecue was made to cook your food low heat slow time =low and slow,

We often use marinades and sauces to tender our meats make them juicier, to infuse a smoky taste and to make it extra tender. So, if you ever wanted to know why the barbecue was for now you know.

To me barbecuing is the way to go, it’s been around for centuries.

Grilling

Grilling is when you are using high heat to sear the meat because its resting in a low level of grease.

Or oil so you’re cooking the ingredients or giving a caramelized color to your food grilling makes food crispier.

And with the perfect grilled lines. And it’s perfect for whipping up food quickly like those veggie kabobs on the grill.

Grilling is versatile flexible since you can make other things besides hamburgers and hotdogs. like breakfast bacon eggs it can be a quick thing to make on the grill.

I’ve even made pancakes on my grill on the mornings of the big camp out, and then cooked lunch on it and dinner too,

Smokers

This is the one I have more info on then allowed by law, I’ve done more research on and have used the same smoker grill barbecue searer chr broiler, or I could have said 8 in 1.

I’m not going to mention any names till the end. but I will be talking a lot about smokers, the smoker I use is electric uses wood pellets and has a heat range from 125 to 500.

Now the new models don’t the lowest setting is 180 to 500, but I usually use mine at 250 to 400.

I use this type of smoker because it’s easy for me to understand, what its heat is doing to how much smoke is going on to what it’s starting to smell like.

All play a part of how good that slab of meat will taste in its allotted time.

Wood chips and charcoal smokers are harder for me to understand because there is no heat setting there, is no telling what if the smoke is doing anything yes it smokes a lot but if it’s not directed right then you’re just letting your money go up in smoke,

Then there’s the will it still be smoking in a hr. 2 hrs. 3 hrs.

How do I not get burned putting wood chips in or worse charcoal.

The one I use has a hopper that the wood pellets go into and if your smart like me you’ll use a bucket and a scooper to fill it with. Cause we all know what happens when we don’t, yep goes everywhere.

But the very first smokers to ever hit the ground was actually made in the ground had a separate chamber for all the smoke to enter and all the heat to cook the food, sort of like a vortex, or a mini tornado inside the fire pit. Smoked very well also caught the majority or the wild west on fire. But I heard that for my grandpa not sure if that legit.

Then somewhere around the 1800s a farmer dug a hole in the ground started smoking his meats and a rather large storm was a brewing.

He didn’t want the rain to put out his fire and ruin all is meat, so he constructed the very first lean2 made of fence and burlap bags I’m going to say was Potatoe sacks.

Not only did this keep the fire going it actually helped smoke the meat better by having moisture with the fire, in turn makes the meat more tender.

Now most of this was made for like winter rations and to put into stews for flavor, but to have juice chewy meat.

Most was also made into like jerky. Something to nibble on before dinner to keep your spirit up on a cold night, some was soaked in whiskey for that extra punch.

I even heard grandpa tell use stories about how they used to put half smoked meat into hot coffee and let it soak to use as a backup cup of Joe. (But I wouldn’t believe everything grandpa says).

The smoke house went on for some time some people still use the old setups from long ago.

And some major companies made them electric, and some gas wood chips or wood pellets, hey are still a stand-up design, but are now made of metal can smoke up to 25 to 50 lbs of meat for the economy size.

Up to 55 to 150 lbs of meat in the pro series the champions series. Then there’s the tankers, they have special chambers in there to let the right amount of snoke to the right amount of air into the smoke chamber to give you heaven on a plate.

Most of these designs came out in the early 60’s and 70’s. most made of stainless steel and was pulled by trucks.

Grills My 5 favorites

1 weber- punched steel to heavy duty rigid steel- charcoal can use wood chips.

2 Kingsford- the 2 that I have here are at least 30 yrs. old are made of heavy cast iron and use firewood 15 in long and 8 in round.

3 char-broil-gas grill comes with porcelain-enamel cast iron cabinet.

4 broil-king-is a 28 -inch vertical propane gas smoker constructed entirely of stainless steel. Even though this is a smoker you can still grill with it with all the different setups this has,

5 Blackstone- even thought his is often refer to a griddle you can still grill on it using differnt attachemnts.it is made of cold rolled steel surface for cooking,

Barbecues

the ones I’m going to list here are not a gas style they are all wood or wood pellet. and there’s only 2 that I’ve used that I consider a barbecue, because on these 2 models the tray for the firewood to sit is deeper than the grills that take charcoal,

this is the biggest difference in a wood type barbecue and a grill. Grills are shallow for fast cooking and barbecues are more for the fall off the bone cooking,

1 Kingsford cast-iron wood barbecue,

2 weber cast iron with stainless steel rack firewood only with stainless top.

Smokers

this is the moment you all been waiting for but if you’ve already skipped ahead, you already know, but for those that don’t yes, my pick is,

1 Pit Boss Pro Series-made of double walled insulation, WIFI capabilities, exterior materials painted metal or hammered finish, cooking space from 220 to 550 for just a basic pit boss to the pro series at 721 to 1851,pellet capacity, basic model 10lbs to 25 lbs,pro series 30 to 60 lbs hoppers, fuel monitor side window, pellet hopper clean out on the bsic models no but on the new pro series yes and some are automatic,warrenty 5 yrs.

mine has lasted longer I’ve went almost 9 yrs. before it got stolen and this one im using now is almost 2 yrs old its a little smaller than the first one I had but it pulls its own here, along with the 2 Kingsford grills I do really good here at the farm.

I’ll eventually figure out how to put up more pictures of these type smoker’s grills and barbecues when time catches up but here are some of my picks for Pit Boss Pro Series these are all 8 in 1 unit they can smoke sear,braze,broil,grill and barbecue, food to perfection.

there’s a whole line of Pit Boss wood pellet grills from the smallest to the grandad, there’s a Pit Boss for you these are some of the ones I’ve used, or I will be using in the future.

1 The smallest one I’ve seen Pit Boss 150pps tabletop grill.

2 Pro series two 850 850 sq in of cooking space,wood pellet.wifi capabilities,20 lb hopper.

3 Austin XL 1000 wood pellet flame broiler 1000 sq in of cooking space.

ive jumped to the big boy because there are so many to list and hes the one Ive been saving up for.

The Pit Boss competition series 1261 combo 8 n 1 this has a smoke attached to a grilling surface and in the middle of all this business, is the flame broiler.

Fitted with Wi-Fi wood pellet and propane. So there ya have it the good the bad and the affordable to the one I’m going to have to take out a loan,but its worth it.

There’s many more to choose from this is just a list of the one I have used or want to use in the future. The 2 grills that pretty much came with the farm have a manufacture name and yr., and nothing else, KINGSFORD 1970.

Heres a fun fact in 1920 Henry Ford learned about a process of turning wood scrapes, from his model Ts into charcoal briquets. He then built a charcoal plant and invented Kingsford charcoal.

It’s still made with the same type wood as it was then. Today the Kingsford company is owned by CLOROX/

So, if you’re starting out for the first time, you want to go small with a wood pellet grill, it can be overwhelming at times but if you have a good understanding of what to expect then this should be a real good lesson. thanks for hanging out with me.

I’ve enjoyed your company if there a grill or smoker you want me to talk about leave me a comment below. thank you, Dennis,