Hey,
I'm Pete, I live in the south east of England, just outside London. I love food - I grow my own vegetables, make my own sausages, and dream of one day raising my own pigs!
I bought myself a Brinkmann Charcoal Smoke 'n' Grill a few months ago and have been trying to get to grips with it (with mixed success) since then! My first couple attempts didn't go too well, as it was difficult to maintain a decent temperature. Since then I've modded it by adding two proper thermometers, putting the legs on the outside and putting the fire pan on legs to improve access to the coals and have drilled holes and put a grate in the fire pan to improve airflow to the coals. I know the Brinkmann isn't the best smoker around, but it's one of the few available over here - and even that costs the equivalent of 150 USD.
Since modding it, the temperature has been a lot easier to control, though I'm sure there's still room for improvement. So far I've only used it half a dozen times and have learnt a bit more each time and keep improving. I still need to improve a lot though! The pulled pork I've done has great flavour from the rub, smoke and finishing sauce but still isn't as perfectly cooked as I get it in my oven. The ribs I tried were quite dry, so I need to try that again. The brisket I did was lovely, really juicy. I did a chicken early on which wasn't very impressive as I didn't add nearly enough wood chips on that go and it wasn't very smokey. I've just finished making a couple batches of homemade sausages yesterday (some pork and apple and some spicy Italian) so am looking forward to trying smoking some of them next!
I've mostly been serving the meat with homemade potato salad, slaw, and salad and have been using off-the-shelf BBQ sauce as I've been concentrating on the meat before I try and get to grips with making my own BBQ sauce.
Looking forward to chatting to you guys more and picking up some tips!
Cheers
Pete
I'm Pete, I live in the south east of England, just outside London. I love food - I grow my own vegetables, make my own sausages, and dream of one day raising my own pigs!
I bought myself a Brinkmann Charcoal Smoke 'n' Grill a few months ago and have been trying to get to grips with it (with mixed success) since then! My first couple attempts didn't go too well, as it was difficult to maintain a decent temperature. Since then I've modded it by adding two proper thermometers, putting the legs on the outside and putting the fire pan on legs to improve access to the coals and have drilled holes and put a grate in the fire pan to improve airflow to the coals. I know the Brinkmann isn't the best smoker around, but it's one of the few available over here - and even that costs the equivalent of 150 USD.
Since modding it, the temperature has been a lot easier to control, though I'm sure there's still room for improvement. So far I've only used it half a dozen times and have learnt a bit more each time and keep improving. I still need to improve a lot though! The pulled pork I've done has great flavour from the rub, smoke and finishing sauce but still isn't as perfectly cooked as I get it in my oven. The ribs I tried were quite dry, so I need to try that again. The brisket I did was lovely, really juicy. I did a chicken early on which wasn't very impressive as I didn't add nearly enough wood chips on that go and it wasn't very smokey. I've just finished making a couple batches of homemade sausages yesterday (some pork and apple and some spicy Italian) so am looking forward to trying smoking some of them next!
I've mostly been serving the meat with homemade potato salad, slaw, and salad and have been using off-the-shelf BBQ sauce as I've been concentrating on the meat before I try and get to grips with making my own BBQ sauce.
Looking forward to chatting to you guys more and picking up some tips!
Cheers
Pete
