Smoking & Grilling

@woody1551 I am not seeing any red flags on your bacon smoking process. Although unlikely since you are using damp sawdust, you might want to ensure the sawdust is just smoldering slowly, and NOT burning with an open flame.

@dr_pain I’m with you. They’re making me hungry

can I make Italian sausage, pepperon, salami, freeze it in casings with seasons and sure cure added and smoke it at a later date.

@retired157 I have a cook shack which is basically the same thing as what you have. Couple of things from what you are describing that you want to do. From the factory there is no vent adjustments, just a pinky sized vent hole on the top and same one on the bottom to drain grease. Now I see you added a vent to the door which will let some air in but it will probably get bottleneck with the small vent on the top. So you may have problems with the smoke schedule you described. Also with this smoker you will have trouble getting wood chunks to smoke (if at all) at low temps. Especially with the low temps in your schedule. With this smoker you really need a smoke generator to do what you described. You mY be able to get away using a smoke tube and a fan since you added the vent on the door. Get on youtube and watch 2 guys and a cooler videos. He has the smokin it brand of your smoker and has a smoke generator to do his sausages.

I think @Austin or @ Jonothan would be the ones to ask as they deal with commercial processors

Boy that’s something I didnt think through. Idk? Anyone???

@mfrievalt - Good Job!

Been smoking Q for over 20yrs in my 2 little cookshacks. Amazing smokers right there! Great find.

Not sure what your smoke schedule looks like. I had same issue and thru posts here found that I was not closing dampers during final stage which never allowed the sticks to finish at the 160 temp causing extremely long cook times and very dry nasty product.

I use chunks in my vertical offset, so I stopped soaking. When I finish my Cotton Gin drum, I won’t soak then either.

@randie-n Agree with the others, it looks great. I prefer to take jerky out a little early since you can always air dry it at room temperature if it needs to be a little drier. On the other hand, once it is crispy-crittered, there is no going back.

@lkrfletcher is there a shelf life or refrigeration required with the butter on them?

@shoprat53 thanks that’s good to know….never thought about freezing it then adding it to sausage. Instead I just buy high temp but it’s so $$$$$. I’ll have to try it with regular chunk cheese

@midwest_kc No I haven’t.

@idaho-smokey My son-in-law worked as a RN in the ER and charge nurse in the ICU, he loved the action until he got hurt on his last long CPR a doc would not call (multiple hours). The only action I ever saw was having to go rescue patrol vehicles for the PD when the c r * p was blowing into proverbial the fan. )(Austin’s censoring program tried, but I got around it). We got sent out to some situations where I was told to just get it running and lets get out of here. Mind you, I have no vest except a high vis that gets left in the service vehicle.

I think being creative and stacking cooking racks with spacers that you could go even more than 12 lbs. That’s what I do with my Louisiana Grill

Also first hour, drying phase keep door cracked open.Helps get rid of moisture.

@bocephus I think you should!

Ah yes, to actually light, I use newspaper donuts drenched and a little bit of vegetable oil. I was more worried that without a half-full or completely full chimney, the coals wouldn’t ash over completely