Smoke?

no you will not. The WSM and FE are not the same as one would think. When you run on the preset 250 setting the pellets actually burn quite clean and you will not get the smoke you experienced with the WSM. This could be good or bad depending on what you are doing.

The smoke setting will burn the pellets at a lower temp. Apparently from folks smarter than I this will produce a greater amount of smoke than the higher temp settings. I am going to measure the temps in my FE this weekend after I install my new board. Will post some results then.

I am testing a butt this weekend. In the past I smoked the butt for 2 hours then went to 250. This had more smoke than straight 250 the whole cook. This weekend I am going to smoke for 2 hours, then 180 until the plateau (rendering) breaks, then move it to 250 for the finish at 195.

not sure how it will turn out and how long it will take, but atleast experiementing with the FE is easier than my offset.

Duck, from reading your earlier posts, it looks like the board that Traeger is shipping you was one they had laying around the shop or something, and you were lucky to get it; and that nobody else is likely to be able to get hold of one. Is that about right?

I think that is correct. This unit actually might have been installed in something at one time, can see where the paint is gone right around the screw holes like it was attached to a housing.

Evets, you seem to be the only guy who gets it. This is a different type of cooker. The best way to cook is to run it on smoke for a while in the beginning and then finish at 250. For me it's about 6 hours on smoke. A session in there at 180 sounds like a good plan to me too.


I guess you guys could just have a firebox added and take the guts out and replace it with a water pan and then it will cook like you want it to. ORRRRRR you could cook like me and Rod and Eddy. We're not really bothered by the numbers on the dial.

Doc,
I appreciate your advice regarding the use of these smokers. It is different than what many of us are use to.

I remember when I first tried driving a car. I asked my dad how do you know how close you are to the shoulder of the road. He said you just point the car forward and keep it between the lines.

Seemed a little over simplified to me then, though I understand now.

With time, many of us may master the working of the FE's, as we did with our log burners. But it is new to us.

Eddy gives some written guidence on how he operates the FE for competitions when you purchase the smoker. I don't believe he addresses the smoke setting.

I would appreciate hearing how you cook on the FE during a competition (times, settings, stacking methods and quanities of meat).

We cooked some practice butts this weekend. Started with two hours of smoke then six hours at 180. Internals were at 135 - 140 at this point. Went to 250 for six hours with excellent results. We would not have been depressed turning them in. If rib practice wasn't bearing down would propably have stayed at 180 until about 160 internal. Being a 220 guy makes the transition to this cooker hard, but I think that higher finishing temps are improving our
product. Not to say I don't think that a 225 setting is needed. The more control over temp the better.

We've been practicing all this week on a variety of meats.

Last pm, I put 1 brisket (12 lb) and a couple of larger butts (8 lb) on at 8 pm. Set the dial at 180. At 5 am, the product was sitting about 150 - 155. I turned the heat up to 275 to finish the butts. At 8 am both butts were at 195 - 200 range and the briskett was at 195. Pulled the butts and set the heat back down to 250 to finish the brisket. The briskett came off at 10 am at 203.

Everything looked (and tasted) wonderful (except the bottom of the briskett stuck to the rack--ideas?).

Being a reformed stick burner, I'm just happy (at this point) being able to maintain steady temps (remembering there can be a 40 degree temp variation from the set point given Smokin Okie's temp mapping). The final outcome, so far has been great.

I spoke with Stuart this am about the flue adapter and also ask about the controller. He said that Cookshack was developing their own with infinite (not click stop) settings. They are shooting for about 6 months from now.

Ron Taylor

The reasons I am looking at a FE are:
1-Increased cook space
2-Convenience
3-Ability to use in a commercial application.

On point #1 the FE wins hands down over the current WSM; for a commercial application, my Sanitarian lets me use the WSM but would rather see shiny stainless and a sticker on the front. As would health departments in many other areas.

"....Cookshack (is) developing their own with infinite (not click stop) settings. They are shooting for about 6 months from now."

Well, that sounds like a great idea. It would go a long way toward addressing the convenience factor.

quote:

Originally posted by drbbq:
[qb]
I guess you guys could just have a firebox added and take the guts out and replace it with a water pan and then it will cook like you want it to. [/qb]

Now THAT made me laugh.

That said, The FE is so different from the standard smokers most of us who buy them are used to, that I think CS should be putting out SOME form of users manual to guide us over the bumps that so many of us have encountered. I am learning now, instead, by trial and error and from the experience of other users. Both methods are good and, given the state of existing documentation, invaluable. But they shouldn't replace a comprehensive user's guide of some kind.

Interesting comments by the good Doc, I am sure we are all eager and willing to try different methods to win with this new toy. I will be doing a whole series of test cooks in the next few weeks on brisket and butts. I will be doing the smoke setting and switching after a number of hours to the higher settings.

Thant being said, I still plan on using this guy for non-competition production butt cooking. I require that I can put on the 10 lbers at 9-10pm and cook all night without changing the temp. I would like the fat to render out properly. I hope the new 225 controller will assist me in doing this. I still have the smoke setting and I can still run it at 250. Besides if it turns out that a 180 setting is more valuable than a 225 setting then I can always replace the controller back to the original unit.

Having never cooked with one of these, we're trying a variety of methods to see what comes out best for our needs. We don't compete much, mosts of the tests are just figuring the beast out so we can produce consistent results. We have the luxury of being able to vary conditions with the FE that we never had with an offset (and am loving it).

Having fought temp variation on the Lang, I'm very pleased with the ability to keep a fairly stable temp. I would be more pleased if I could set what I wanted.

I also haven't had the time or extra pellets to map the actual temps in our cooker, so I'm just relying on the readout and by what Smokin' Okie did. On the 180 setting, the temp tended to drift up toward 200. If the back left of the top shelf was +26 and the back left of the 2nd shelf was +19 then the temp I was cooking at was ranging in the upper 100's and low 200's.

I used the 180 setting because I also want the convenience factor of cooking overnight. I was afraid that the 250 might be too much for that period of time (having one of the 225 challenged controllers). I probably could have left the low temp for another couple of hours or put the meat on at 10 pm instead of 8 pm to avoid changing the temp at 5 am.

It seemed to do fine using the lower temp approach. I want to try some starting with the smoke setting and some with higher temps also. I'll email Smokin Okie some pictures of the out come of this cook if he's interesed in posting them or I can email them to whomever wants. The pork was excellent and rendered well, the brisket was pull apart (but not fall apart) tender and had a great flavor and smoke ring.

Duck, eagerly looking forward to hearing your results in the next few weeks. With your new controller, you should be able to give us some good information on whether you think it makes a significant difference on this type of cooker. It's always great to have the benefit of other's experience. You could actually do the same cook, first using the 225 controller then with the 250 controller. Overnight the food to a randomly selected judging panel (I'm sure you would have plenty of volunteers). The panel could then decide which was better. We could start with ribs, then pork, then brisket, then lobster (this could take a while--maybe months but eventually, we'd come up with an answer).

Sounds like a plan, I have four neighbors that are my independent tasting panel. Doing four briskets friday or saturday.

What about placing a foil packet filled with wood chips on top of the heat deflector to add more smokey flavor at the higher temps?

booboo, funny you say that

I was on a plane last night thinking about that very thing and where would be the best place to sit it....