Thanks to all the "welcome back" messages. I had been lured by the evil pellet smoker temptation for awhile, but now I'm back in the "thin blue wood smoke" crowd!!!! The Pit Boss 5 pellet smoker is being passed on to my son-in-law as he likes pellet grills, and wants to expand into a vertical smoker like the 5. To me, the pellet just does not give the pleasure and control the WSM on a BBQ Guru power draft had, nor the flavor.
For those not familiar with the Humphrey's Smokers, and the Pint or Battle Box in general (their two most popular competition models), It's an insulated reverse flow cabinet smoker. I bought the full set of extra racks for 9 total so I can smoke a mess of sausage or sticks if I want to. With a power draft they are widely reported to be one of the most stable and long cooking smokers you can buy. I'm going to use the BBQ Guru I had on my WSM for now as I don't really see the need for wifi as I'm retired and home 99% of the time. I might upgrade one day, but for now the trusty ole BBQ Guru Digi-Q II is still my go-to.
I lucked up and no one had picked up this one which had been in stock for a while, so no wait period on basically what I would have "custom" ordered. Plus it was on sale and they had a $99 shipping deal to Georgia from Maine. No need for a 2 month wait for it to be built! I had been watching it for about 8 months, drooling every time I looked at it. I pondered the BattleBox and Weekender models, but finally came to the conclusion this is a 1 time purchase, so do it right and just go with the Pint. Finally crossing this off my bucket list. Still a lot cheaper than a Corvette for an old grey bearded man!!!
The crate it came in was like Fort Knox and I know I looked like a mad man in the dark only illuminated by the house flood lights trying to pry into that fortress of a shipping crate when it arrived at dusk the other day. Even though I up-sized the wheels to the 8" no-flat ones, it's still a monster to move. Fortunately after my hospital stay in 2024, I had a wheelchair ramp installed from the driveway to the back covered porch, so getting it up there was not hard at all. I can't imagine moving a 500 lb smoker up stairs to a deck, but I know people do it.
It's an automotive type metal flake paint and I'm going to put a ceramic sealant on it. Custom fitted cover is on order. The only hitch was I took the 12 months free financing option and you can't do the normal checkout online with that option. They have to manually process it due to the approval procedure at a 3rd party bank (which is quick and painless if anyone is considering this option). I had to email Nicole (one of the owners) my customization list and it came with 3 stainless racks, so I order 6 extra (also on sale) for the full capacity of 9 racks. Somewhere between the order and the pulling of parts for shipment, the 6 extra racks were pulled and packed, but the 3 stock ones were left off (6 total shipped instead of 9). Super nice people who run the company. Chad and Nicole are the owners and it's a small family fabrication shop. A quick email and they shipped the 3 other racks the same day. Each rack is large enough to hold a full sized hotel pan, but it will not hold 9 in height. It can cook more meat in a single smoke than I will ever need, but it's nice to have options for a mess of sausage or sticks.
Based on my love of using the flower pot base trick in the WSM, I did buy the custom fitted heat sink for this one. It can be run as a regular water type smoker with a full size hotel pan for the water, but they make a welded drop in box that has 2 levels of fire brick sealed inside of it for a heat sink al-la WSM flower pot base mod. Figured it was cheaper to buy all the extra goodies and take advantage of the $99 flat rate shipping sale vs ordering stuff later.
We have been swamped with other life stuff lately, and I'm itching to get this thing seasoned and some smoke flavor started. I'm thinking I might be able to get it seasoned tomorrow and do a maiden smoke. I have a ham I was going to smoke for New Years, but the kids had the other in-laws in town so they did not come over this year. I saved the ham for the Humphreys. Not a glamorous first smoke, but it counts. Probably going to do a honey/butter/bourbon glazed ham, and yep I'll document the process.
If I get the mill coating washed off the interior and prep it for seasoning, I'll get the "grand tour" photos taken and of course I'll start a thread for those. Then there is the ham smoke, even if it's "just" a double smoked ham and normally a ho-hum type of cook (but I still love ham this way).
More to come soon, if not tomorrow.....
