OK, so I bought my Amerique last Thursday (afternoon from Ken at The Charcoal Store. He said that mine should make it to me by Christmas if they received another shipment of AQs on Friday. Well, I anxiously waited over the weekend and on Monday morning, I tracked my order and it had already shipped! I received a phone call from R&L Shipping to expect it between noon and 2:00 on Tuesday, and it arrived at 11:40. I immediately opened the package, put the wheels on and plopped 3 chunks of wood in the box and turned it on. After 6 hours, I immediately set the AQ up for a real smoke and put two pork shoulders in for a spell with 2 chunks of apple and a chunk of hickory. I had the AQ probe in one shoulder and my new ET-73 in the other. The Maverick read about 10 degrees cooler the entire time of the smoke. I set the AQ to 180 and went to bed. About 6 1/2 hours later on Wednesday morning I woke up and turned up the heat to 225. It took a good while to get these pieces done, and they weren't up over 200 degrees by midnight so I went to bed and let the AQ put them on hold some time overnight. At 0700 Thursday morning I pulled the shoulders out and plopped a Costco leg of lamb I'd been marinating overnight (a thick paste of olive oil, minced garlic, granulated onion, pepper, salt, oregano, mint, a touch of brown sugar and yogurt mostly spooned into the interior of the netted leg and the remainder rubbed over the exterior) along with a chunk of apple and a chunk of hickory and set the AQ at 190, increasing the temp to 230 after 6 hours. Meanwhile, the pork shoulders rested for a spell, and when they were pulled apart, the crust was dark brown and crispy, but the interior was pink and squooshy. Quite a treat for breakfast on Christmas morning!
The lamb finished after about 8 1/2 hours, and it too had a darker exterior and pink and tender inside. The meat just melted in my mouth, and was easily cut with a fork. My brother-in-law, who normally hates lamb, had seconds and thirds, and only had one piece of the prime rib (which Wife forced me to roast in a conventional oven).
After all this cooking, the cleanup took about 3 minutes, except brushing the crusties off the rack with a grill brush before putting it in the dishwasher.
My problem? I'm seriously addicted to this thing, and I'm totally out of control! I dream about smoking potatoes for mashing, or eggplant for moussaka, or jalapeno peppers, or red cabbage for rotkohl, or mussels. I mean, I really dream about the AQ. I don't have enough space to put all the food I want to cook! But I don't want to stop! Help!
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