What's the Catch??

My reaction EXACTLY, my friend! I kept walking out to the garage and wondering why I wasn't stoking the coals or backing them off, or any of the other things I had to do every half hour with my offset.

And the REALLY great thing is that you don't even have to go in and MOP every half hour or even every hour. Mopping with the FE is less necessary since the interior keeps a lot of humidity and opening the door just lengthens the cooking time. I think you'll find that you'll give up even that chore and now, while you cook, you can pull up a chair, sit back with a brew and light up a nice stogie, if you've a mind to. Or you can go back into the house and do something else. I still find it fun to go out and "check" my cooker because each time I do it's doing exactly what I asked it to do without any help from me.

I love the stories about the guys with FE's in competition crawling into their sleeping bags and getting some much needed rest while the stick burners watch their fires.

You'll be telling those same stories before long, I hope.

I couldn't really spell it out before, but that's one of the reasons I wanted this cooker so badly. Of course, the being able to get some sleep at the contests was one thing. I think the other is to have a cooker that is absolutely consistent from time to time - that way, I can change one thing in my cooking procedure or my rub ingredients, and see exactly what effect it's having on the final product. I'm not going to have to worry about - well, the ribs were better, but was it because of foiling them for 1/2 hour before taking them off, or because I had a temperature spike 3 hours into the cook, or because the temp was low because it's windy, etc.

I just put 6 butts and 1 chuck roll in set at 225*F at 6 PM. I'll get up about 3 AM and crank it to 275*F and they'll be done at 6 AM as always, whether it is 4 butts or 8 it almost always takes 12 hours using that procedure. I could let it go at 225*F but I need to drop in 4 racks of ribs that need to be done at 9:30 or 9:40 AM so I can put in 16 chicken halves that'll take 1 hour 40 minutes to all be done by when I open at 11 AM. And tomorrow is the first day ever to offer chicken!

Since now I am almost 60 years old I now get up often during the night to pee or should I say urinate. So when I get up I look at the time and see if it temp adjust time....and a nice thing now is my work place, where the FE100 is, is only a 6 second commute by foot!

So there it is just like you have been wanting it and now you have it too!

Peter

I think evets has hit on the real negative of the FE100. When the team tried out our new cooker, we found two things. First, beer consumption increased radically which raises the possibility of becoming a drinking team instead of a cooking team. Second, with nothing to do, we started talking to each other which raises the possibility that we will find out we don't like each other. For the first few contests we will cook something on one of the old cookers just to keep us busy and sober while the FE100 does its thing.

I have found something to do while the FE is cooking to make me think that I am tending to something. I just open the hopper lid and stir the pellets! An hour late, I think, maybe it's time to stir the pellets again. It'll give you something to do.

It's sorta like a cigarette smoker trying to quit, holding a pencil between his fingers.

LOL at Fred! Very insightful!

And Gritsboy, this is no kidding, you may be joking but I actually do the same thing--open the hopper, give it a stir to fill in the little depression, go back and sit in the lounge chair and enjoy my stogie.