Hello from West Central Ohio

Thank You for the Warm Welcome !!  In reply to Blue Whisper, I most likely live closer to him than I do to Jungle Jim's. I was to there earlier in March for the first time and its about 95 miles from my place to Jungle Jim's at Fairfield. If you look at a map of Ohio on the Western side and you trace I-75 to the center of the State, I live just off exit 104 which is the Botkins Ohio exit. I work as a Lumber Inspector for a sawmill in the region and have been involved with the sawmill industry for nearly 40 years in some manner.  Something I am known locally for is my Chili Soup. I usually make it once a year for the local Museum during our Fall Open House. I have a small butchering kettle and make it over an open fire. The past couple years I have had some people ask me if I would sell my recipe, I told em nope, its not for sale at this time. Besides no recipe can truly be duplicated from one cook to another, much of my seasoning is done by taste. Some of my other hobbies/interests include diesel trucks, antique/vintage farm machinery, genealogy/local history, home canning and butchering, and my German Heritage.

My question as you are referring to, isn't so much the fuel source as it is the type of unit being used to smoke/cook. I have read some on a couple other sites and nearly all of the active posters there were using grills, not actual smokers like what I have. I can see with a grill a person being able to fine tune your cooking temp much closer than I seem to be able to with my propane smoker. Most of them were talking about cooking an item for 8-10 hrs. or even longer, and it taking that long to reach their desired internal temp. With my unit I am always reaching internal temps in much less time. Like last year when cooking the goat, I was reading a cooking time of 8-9 hrs., yet when I cooked it, I was finished at 6.5. The other part of my question, is when people do these long period cooking times, how often do you have to add wood to maintain smoking through out the cooking time? I guess that even goes for any smoking/cooking time. When I fix something that  will take about 2 hrs. to prepare, I will most times add wood at least half way through. In most cases my wood chips are ash by 45 minutes if not sooner. I always soak my chips in water for no less than 30 minutes before using them and I place them in an old cast iron skillet that I sit on top of the units chip pan. These are just a couple questions I have had that I hope I am able to learn more about on here.  One other thing I have been tossing around doing for some time is build a smoke house. When ever we butcher hogs, I butcher them here at home and I have wanted for years to smoke my own sausage and bacon. I hope to learn more on this as well.