Hello from oxford

[keith157]

I'll leave that to the more experienced

[Steve]

My experience is that the WSM will hold more solidly for longer without any nursing. With homemade forced draft I can run mine for 24 hours at 250F.

I've previously owned 2 Excels and 1 Frontier and I owned them for a few years. While they are fine cookers in their own right, I'm very glad I jumped over to WSM's.

The latest design of E20 just adds ceramic paint to the stackers AFAIK. This won't improve efficiency over the old design, but may stop them going grey.

[From The Sauce]

We run 4 Pro Q Excels with extra rings at catering events and they happily go 12 hours unattended. There is a door at each level meaning that you can fill up the fire when you need to without removing rings to get to it. You can also spray/ baste the food on each level without removing the rings too.
Hope this helps.

[awesselbaum]

It certainly does. Many thanks

[Steve]

12 hours unattended with 3 stackers.

Could you share your technique with the other ProQ users on the forum Neil. I know in the years I used them, I never got anything like that, the Excels would need vents adjusting and the charcoal disturbing.

Seeing the other guys at comps who don't use FD they may get several hours without adjustment, but not 12. So you must be setting up spot on, I'm sure the Pro Q people would love to know.

BTW I heard a rumour you might have just picked up a couple of Primos, if said rumour is true, how are they working out for you?

[From The Sauce]

Hi Steve,
Fairly simple really and no magic. Set up with a mix of restaurant grade charcoal and heatbeads, use the minion method with heatbeads heated in a chimney starter. Now, there is one bit of advice worth knowing. The first time we tried this method with a brand new Pro Q we hit 350 degrees - we were complacent and paid the price! The secret is to know your pit and the same model won't mean the performance is exactly the same. However, with some experimentation (who doesn't enjoy that?) after a couple of attempts, you'll be set.
I haven't cooked on a WSM, but the method works just great for our Pro Q's.

On the subject of Primo's - I have 2 oval XL's heading my way and should arrive on Wednesday, I am mostly excited about out new trailer which is due in time for Grillstock.

[awesselbaum]

Oh no more questions
Firstly which FD system do you use and where do you get them from?
2nd is the bge really the be all and end all? I quite like the look of the broilking keg 4000 as its less likely to get damaged. What do peeps think about the kamado Joe and other systems? Anyone know of any good deals on these ?

[Steve]

Interesting, that's a pretty standard setup. Obviously I'm aware of tweaking between cookers of the same type. One of my E20's used to like to run at about 230 and the other would always try to run up at 270. My two WSM's did perform a lot closer to each other until I got an out of round on one of my bases in transit from a comp Now she has to wear a foil mini skirt

So is the trailer for mounting your Ovals or are you putting a new pit in there as well? I'm guessing you're aiming more at a catering rig than a comp rig?

and for Awesselbaum - no BGE are not the be all and end all. If you want a ceramic, then KJ get great feedback, I've cooked on a Primo and they're fantastic bits of kit. If you're going ceramic then FD is just a luxury, all the ceramics will hold temp well.

On the subject of FD, I'm not a massive fan of the Pitmaster IQ but most of the guys using them really rate them. Several of my friends in the US rate Stokers, but there's been mixed feedback over here. I use a homebrew FD setup which was relatively cheap and easy to build. John has one of mine running his Stumps clone at BBQ Shack and he's told me it runs tighter than a stoker

[KamadoSimon]

Pitmaster for me - but all the other systems seem to work too. Just depends how much dosh you want to spend & how much you value things like wifi connection to check remotely.

Regarding BGE versus Kamado Joe versus Broilking keg.... They all do similar things. The other one to look at is Primo - really like the look of these & their range of accessories. And they seem to be making a push into the UK recently. Between BGE & KJ, having compared (but not cooked on) the two, the quality is same. I prefer the hinge mechanism of the KJ - seemed more robust to me - but then you don't hear of BGE hinges failing - so mute point. The support network in the UK for KJ is good compared to other Kamado grills, but admittedly not as good as BGE who have a wider network of dealers. The spares & important accessories for the KJ is as good as BGE. Given they were so alike, it came down to price. You can get a KJ for £650 currently which is a lot less than the equivalent BGE (£799). My one experience of KJ customer support has been excellent - moisture got into my thermometer so they replaced for free. Is the BroilKing Keg likely to be more hard wearing? Unless you are going to be moving it around lots (i.e. in and out of cars for competitions etc), any of them will survive UK weather. My spends most of its time out of its cover - but if I am not using for extended periods (ie not often) then the cover goes on.

Personally, I think that the combination of a Weber Kettle & WSM would give more flexibility and I may have gone that route had I researched it more rather than being focused on the high temperature thing of the Kamados. But if you want one thing to do all styles of cooking, then these fit the bill.

Hope that helps.

Simon

[Swindon_Ed]

If i knew what i knew now about FD systems when i bought mine i would buy a BBQ Guru as they're by far the best made unit out of the 3 main ones and they have an extra level of control which the other systems don't have as they allow you to restrict the air flow of the fan which is excellent for stopping overshoots and when using them with Kamado style cookers this can cause big problems. I've found that using the recomended fan setup for my stoker on ceramic bbq's has caused 30f temp swings (which took ages to come back down) and with the smaller fan i still had 15f overshoots. The BBQ guru allows me to minimise the swings by 5f each side.

another thing to consider when looking at these systems is to make sure that they have a mechanism which detects when the lid is open as this can also cause temp spikes.