Perhaps I'm a slow adopter but here is what I am thinking and looking for input. In my mind pellet grills don't give the same smokiness of a dedicated smoker plus a 14-18 hour smoke would be a lot of pellets. I need my Weber Q220 little gas grill for quick things and tailgating but a traditional weber kettle grill would be best for steaks and other things. So I am looking for a Masterbuilt Thermotemp gas smoker which has a thermostat control for set and forget except for adding wood chips every couple of hours. Am I overthinking this and just go with my gas tailgate grill and a pellet grill/smoker to cover the rest or would having 3 devices not be as crazy as it sounds?
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So, my "first" smoker was technically a traditional offset wood/charcoal burner. Man I hated that thing. Impossible for me to control temp or flat out keep the fire going. I probably just suck, but learning curve too steep for me...plus the babysitting.
My second real smoker was just like this one, but much older and simpler, Masterbuilt vertical gas smoker. I went with gas for transportability, and we lived on an acreage so a propane tank just made more sense to me. I had to install a needle valve on the gas line to give me more control of the flame though, as "low" would often get too hot for my cook.
It was much better than the offset cooker, but I had to set my watch to 60-90 minutes max to come back and add wood chunks. Plus, sourcing wood chunks that I liked was a bit of a pain. Often I'd hit craigslist for some hardwood firewood and bandsaw down my own chunks. My hack was to put a cast iron skillet in the bottom for my wood chunks. I used that for maybe 5 years before it literally was falling apart. I went to try to clean it out one day and my garden hose started blasting through a side wall....
Now I've got a PitBoss pellet grill. I only use it for smoking, and I still have a gas grill for actual grilling. I smoke everything in a pan + rack so I never get grease inside the pellet grill. And a 20lb bag of quality pellets is $8-10 and readily available at several stores. Buy, dump, smoke. And I don't have to babysit this thing at all. I leave it alone for hours at a time, just check temp periodically and peek in the pellet box to make sure it's feeding okay.
Usually I'm smoking a pork butt for ~8-12 hours and I figure half a bag of pellets. Once I smoked 4 butts at one time and it took 18 hours, I think I used almost a whole bag by the time the last holdout butt was done.
I just bought one of these camp stoves that has been awesome for blanching/freezing sweet corn and canning salsa the last 2 weeks -- and I can buy griddles separately to use when we go camping and want to cook food.
Camp Chef Explorer 2-burner
Use one of these contraptions in a masterbilt electric smoker. Keep the chip trap open half way and the top vent open. I have also added pellets to the tray but that takes too mutch watching. Prime rib is the best. Set your temp at 160 degrees. I also have a Weber Genesis Gas (second one in 31 years). and a Weber Charcoal. I am considering the Masterbilt gravity series anyone have a take on the gravity series?
