Southern Pride?

nick,
i work part time in a bbq joint here which allows us to do our competition thing and try to grow a catering business. where i work they have two southern prides.
the biggest drawbacks i see to them is this;
1- the gas you are right you can taste it big time. matter of fact it makes my wife belch. think it is due to the perfume the gas manufacturers have to put into so that a leak is easily dedectible.
2- a rotissier will even out an hot spots but it is still up to the operator to determine when the meat is done so in my view it is a mote point.
3- a lot of operators use the gas kicker to cover up a lack of wood and past that i wont say a word.

i agree with you on the electric. it is clean, odor free and the vast majority of people would never guess that the meat wasn't done on an open pit.

the water jacket if used properly can create a great product but the same effect is achevied by cookshack making a very tight unit in both the FEC and SM models. plus the water jacket does allow a "fudge" factor if your operator isnt properly trained as the meat wont dry out too bad.

to be brutally honest my wife on her SM150 can turn out a better product and a more consistant product than most local bbq joints can with their southern prides BUT she can't turn out their volumes and let's be honest the average customer doesn't know good 'Q from bad. as an aside peg has had only 3 months with her sm and very little practice at that other than vending at contests since an sm isn't approved for competitions.

in the end, in the right hands a southern pride is one heckuva a unit, but the average bbq jockey here gets about 8-9 bucks an hour so i will let you draw your own conculsions.

of course all of this is only my two cents worth

jack

Great explanation---thanks! So the design is for high output production. It's true that you can really load them up but you better have some place to go with all that meat if it's all coming out at the same time.

Another aspect of the rotisserie is they have to turn the ribs which means opening the unit. It is not a "Set it and forget it" situation as with Cookshack. If you're set up in an indoor kitchen, then all that smoke is going to be coming out when you open the doors, isn't it?

When you eat in the typical bbq joint, mushy ribs are more often the rule than the exception. I suspect it is because of too much reliance on the water jacket and applying too much steam to speed up the cooking process.

I guess it really doesn't matter what kind of equipment you use, it's the guy operating it that counts.

I am really curious about how a commercial bbq kitchen is set up and operated. Any chance of getting a quick tour of yours next time I'm up in St. A.? We usually stop at Woody's off exit 284 (Palm Coast).

Great reply Jack.

Ah, Smoker Design...there certainly are a lot of them out there.

quote:

Originally posted by Nick Scull:
[qb] I am curious about something because I have yet to hear it explained...

Someone told me they revolve to get more even smoke and heat. Creating an even smoke and heat is not a problem with vertical rack ovens like Cookshack, so what's the big deal?

I saw a rotating one from OK at the Florida Sportsmen Show the other weekend and it had a 15 gallon water jacket for creating a wet smoke.

Can anyone offer an explanation, comparison or opinion? Also, why is the water jacket necessary if the heat is properly regulated? TIA [/qb]

You want opinions, we got opinions.

Rotisserie. You're exactly right the concept is to compensate for the heat distribution in a cabinet, as well as allow for more ease of use handling large amount of product. And every smoker has heat problems, even the CS's. The bottom rack, closer to the heat gets hotter. The top rack get's hot because heat rises and stays at the top. A rotating unit compensates for heat distribution. I don't have one in my FEC100, it has hot spots. So, just like every cooker I've had, I learn where they are and I'm aware of them. The FEC2000 has a rotisserie, and rumor of a small FEC1000 with one also is out there.

Gas/Electric/Wood. The guys at SP, and I know them, make a great unit. There are MANY restaurants that you go to that use them with great success. It's just a different method, some like it, some don't. For high volume Restuarants like it because of the cost of wood is too high.

Water Jacket. Pretty simple concept. Weber bullets and Brinkmans have water pans. The thought is that "dry" heat dries out the food faster. It also works as a heat baffle to prevent heat from getting directly to the meat. In the CS's you don't need one because of design it stays humid. But with humidity you have other effects. You can steam the meat if you're adding too much water. The bark won't really dry. "wet smoke" not sure what KF is meaning.

FYI, here is a rotisserie unit I'm wanting to sell, my Genuswine, only because I need a larger unit, it has 4 rotating trays:

Jack,

You are being kind when you call that stuff they put in a gas bottle as "perfume." When I was a kid following a mule plowing and smelling what they put out it was better than the odor of a gas bottle cooking or leaking. Give me electric or natural charcoal. Never want to go back to the farm again, just eat what the farmers sell.

Nick
I really investigated all different kinds of cookers before I purchased one for my restaurant. I use the electric southern pride with wonderful results for both chicken and pork. I choose the SP over the Cookshack because of the higher temp possible and the larger watt heating element and the separate element for the chip holder. With my unit you can open the door as often as you want without a measurable difference in cooking times because of the fast rebuild of temp in the unit with the larger element. I love this forum and have recommended the CS unit to many home users looking to have the same results at home as the big commercial units do. I have sampled products from the larger SP units and they do not yield the same quality as my smaller electric unit does. For my size operation the SP 200 was the answer(10k to 11k per wk)If I needed larger volume I would probably go with the larger CS electric unit.
Hope this helps in your operation
Herman

nick---
tell you what. you email me direct when you are headed my way and of course i will be happy to let you look around. southern pride does make a great production unit and i will be happy to tell you what i can.

mullet.
peggy told me i had to be nice and play nice!!!!!
now thinking about that in a rational manner i came up with this. she is irish, red hair and related to the plantangenots that conqured england under william the conqurer. matter of fact one of her relatives is eric the basta*d. now think man. am i not going to call it perfume?????
jack

Thanks, Guys, for all the good thoughts.

I am at yet another crossroads with my BBQ catering. It started a few years back when I used to invite friends and neighbors for butts and briskets on Super Bowl Sunday. Each year the party doubled in size because people wanted to bring friends who had never eaten what they call "Real Southern pit BBQ" or because they loved it.

Next thing my friends started paying me to cater their office functions and home parties. But you don't even know you're in the catering business until strangers start calling. Now my friends can't get their bbq from me so three different ones bought Smokettes, and with a little help they are all up and smoking. One of them is now catering some fundraisers, etc.

BBQ chicken seems to be growing in popularity. One of my dilemmas is the fact that so many people want to order my mojo marinated slow-grilled hens, a recipe I spent years perfecting. It doesn't come out very well in a CS and the act of grilling is a highly unpleasant one, standing in front of thirty-five smoky Cornish game hens over a bed of hot embers on a seriously warm Florida afternoon. I know that's why God created cold beer but that doesn't cut it much.

That's why I am curious about the revolving shelf design---for poultry. But I don't think my product needs the use of a water jacket. I brine but I don't water smoke. People love the crispy brown skin, so I want to preserve the original recipe.

The drawback is you gotta sell a flock of birds to pay for the darned equipment! The alternative is to drop fowl from the menu and go back to just CS pork and brisket with all food prep at home and deliver with an instruction sheet for serving like I used to do. A heck of a lot easier and more pleasant.

nick,
make you life ez
buy an fec100 or what the heck go whole hog and get the fe2000.
crispy chicken skin no problem!!!!
look at what bill and the dixie chicks do with chicken at every competition and i guareenty they use an fe100!!!!
and if you really want high heat talk to candy sue weaver at bbq'ers delight. i know just how high her pellets hit lol
just my dollars worth on this one!!!
or 3 ideas at 33.3 cents each
jack

OMG,
I found the secret to crispy chicken skin! By accident, I set Jack's Brinkman water pan which was full of pork grease on fire during a practice! The chicken came out very crispy! And I was using Mojo also. I thought it tasted great, but I don't think I'd want to duplicate this in a competition.
If it ever happens to you, just slam the lid on, make sure the little door at the bottom is closed, smile when you serve this crispy chicken!
The good news was it cleaned all the creosote or whatever buildup was on the cooker right off.
The chicken was very tasty.
Peggy

Jack,

Just ordered another SM 055 from CS. I decided to keep things simple, just increase capacity.

How can the FE 100 compete in the big time if it is electric? Did KCBS, etc. change the rules?

Peggy,

Once many years back, I had a 25 lb whole hog ignite because the kid who was supposed to watch it through the night fell asleep. The neighbors at the bottom of the hill thought it was my house and called the fire department. It was an impressive display of pig pyro! Even made the newspaper.

nick,
the heat on an fec comes from burning the wood pellets. only electric is the auger the fan and the igniter
legal for comp in kcbs and fba and most others ithink but i am really only familiar with fba and kcbs
jack

KCBS has made no rule changes,regarding fuels.

The Fast Eddy cookshack cooks/produces heat by burning wood pellets.

The auger pellet feed mechanism is electric powered.

Had a good talk with CS customer service and the FEC100 sounds very sophisticated. It could be my solution to doing poultry and roasts. I have to see if it will amortize at my current volume.

Thanks for the info...