PIT BARREL COOKER

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races pig

Newbie
Original poster
Jul 30, 2012
4
10
Denver Colorado
Folks Noah over at PIT BARREL COOKERS sent me my PIT BARREL and man I love this new cooker. This is a rock solid cooker that you load light hang your meat in put the cover on and walk away. I cant tell ya how juicy the meat turns out. I am very impressed with it. Now I got 3 other Smokers that wont see much use.
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I like it so much I am gonna start selling them. And will use 4 in Competition cooking. As you can see it is not much larger then my Brinkman

 
RP, evening and welcome to the forum.....  So, you have joined the ranks of those who swear by cooking on an Ugly Drum Smoker....  Congrats.....  we have a few members that have won many trophies cooking on those beauties....  they swear by them also...... 

Anyway, glad you stopped in...  enjoy the forum and recipes our gifted members have to share.....  Take pics (q-views) of your smoking accomplishments to share here.... we love pics....  Enjoy the long smokey ride...  Dave
 
Congrats on the new smoker. It looks great

I just read the instructions from their website and they recommend starting the charcoal with lighter fluid. I would suggest using a chimney instead so you don't have the starter fluid taste in your food or your drum  
 
I use a chimney to start it and use the minion method. This last cook was a mix of woods green peach persimmon oak and hickory what a great flavor it added to the beef. As for usd yep I want folks to be able to cook like comp cooks at home. You should not have to spend 20 grand to enjoy good Q Thanks for the kind words folks.
 
I recently obtained one of these as well. It does do a good job but in smoking Jeff's recent chuck roast recipe I modified it to accept my Digi Q as the company states the temp in the barrel is 275 - 290 with the vent set as it came from the factory. I wanted to cook slower so hence the changes. (250 is as low as I could get it)

I just cut a piece of steel and used a standard adapter and the same mounting hole that the factory vent cover was attached to. Worked well and after about 6 hours I still had plenty enough heat left to crank up the fan and grill some sliced rib eye for Philly cheese steak sandwiches. The smoke really helped the flavor.

Not as big as my other units but it will hold a lot set up in the hanging configuration. So far it is quite good.




Factory
 
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you guys should head over to BBQ Brethren and read the threads on this unit..Quite the PISSIN MATCH!!

I think they price is a bit high for basically a UDS that can't  hold a low temp like a UDS can.

Dan
 
you guys should head over to BBQ Brethren and read the threads on this unit..Quite the PISSIN MATCH!!

I think they price is a bit high for basically a UDS that can't  hold a low temp like a UDS can.

Dan
I've had a PBC for a while now, and love it.

I paid a little over $200 for mine, with free shipping from a Kingsford promotion.

I'm happy.
 
Hi y'all -

Been smoking a little while, after I figured out how to get my Weber gas grill down to 225 and used chips and foil to get the smoke going...Got some decent Q going on that...

New PBC was delivered to work last week, and we did a couple roaster chickens on it - Juicy  - awesome - flavorful in slightly over an hour and a half.  The cooker maintained 250-260 th3 whole time. Monitored meat temp with a leave-in thermo. Used my digital Fluke meter to monitor cooker temp, the chamber temp went up to 370 after we pulled the meat and stayed there, which I found curious.  Noting the burn pattern, the coals burned across the basket from the air inlet side.  Anybody else see this happening?
 
I just ordered a PBC, my question is can I close the vent from the preset opening to reduce heat to around 250?
 
I had recently contacted the company to see what the normal operating range was. They stated 275-295 if the vent was set to your elevation. I had mine all the way closed at about 800 ft and the lowest I could get down to was 253.

PBC_VENT_REFERENCE_3_250pix.jpg
 
Sir thank you for your response, I believe the elevation near Seattle is around 450 ft.  I'm excited about the PBC but would like to cook around 250F tops.  I will trust the process, again appreciate your feedback.  I have BGE and thinking about picking up the DIGI QX2.

Thanks
 
I think I'm going to get one of these... I like the ease of use and the higher cooking temps. The compact size will fit well in the bed of my truck without interfering with my fifth wheel camper. 
 
Trust me when I say the Pit Barrel is worth the money and more.  I have had the PBC for the last two months, the food comes out perfect no matter what you are cooking.  I have done ribs, pork butt, chicken, game hens etc.  Follow the directions to light it and the rest is history, no more prepping the day before.  Start that morning and you can have up to 8 slabs of ribs, 8 qtr chicken and a brisket at days end on the Pit Barrel.

NW Pit master
 
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I'm looking at getting a PBC, but I have one concern.

I've used the 3-2-1 method on my ribs since the day I found this site.  Do any of you guys use this method with the PBC?  I'm guessing I could start with them hanging, then wrap them and put them on the grates, then hang them to finish'em at the end.

What do you guys do?
 
When I do ribs on the PBC, I do as you describe but do not hang them a 2nd time. I either use the grates (if enough room for the amount I smoked) or use my Weber or a gasser for the final step..
 
Hi there has anybody tried lump charcoal or competition Kingsford in their pit barrel cooker and if so how much do you add to the basket because I know it gets a little hotter than the regular Kingsford briquettes I just don't like the taste of the regular Kingsford
 
RustyWedges: I use my Pit Barrel Cooker for St Louis Ribs, Buffalo Wings and Salmon -- the rest of the stuff I cook on a Lang, with the exception of Chicken, which my wife cooks on a Weber 22.5. I was skeptical about the method Noah suggests for those 3 products, especially the ribs, but decided to give his method a try (check out the video's on their web site). They came out perfect and the were the best I've cooked -- same for the wings and salmon. This is no surprise since Noah spent a lot of time testing his product to determine what works.

Fanning206: I use Lump along with wood chunks in my Lang. Lump burns hotter than regular charcoal. I don't like using regular charcoal because of all the junk they put in it to act as a binder. Competition has a lot less junk. With that being said, I decided to stick with what Noah suggests for the same reason I provided to RustyWedges -- Noah extensively tested the charcoal and knows what works. I'm not saying not to use lump but since it burns hotter you're cooking times will change. I don't cook by time but by temperature so if I used lump I'd have to carefully monitor the product so as to not overcook it.The PBC maintains a temp around 280* to 295*.  Lump and competition will push the temperature over 300* so you'll have to watch what your doing and experiement.  

This is unrelated to the topic but one thing I do is load the PBC charcoal basket with an amount of charcoal appropriate for what I'm cooking. In other words, St Louis ribs is a long cook but wings and salmon are a short cook. The PBC will cook for 5, 6 or 7 hours on a full charcoal basket, which is a waste of charcoal on a short cook. 
 
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