Photo Tour of a Backwoods Smoker

If you've been following along here, you know that I've been in a continuous upgrade pattern for the past couple of years.  I still enjoy cooking on my Big Green Egg & the Bubba Keg, but I first purchased a Backwoods Fatboy for more capacity.  Then, I upgraded to a Backwoods Pro Jr. for even more capacity.  This cooker seems to be big enough and still take up a reasonable amount of space in my garage since it's a cabinet/vertical style unit.

I thought I'd take a minute to breakdown how this vertical smoker is put together.  First, the units are all configured with a firebox below the cooking chamber.  The firebox is seperated by a water pan at the bottom of the cooking chamber.

Optionally, a heat deflector is available to act as a further barrier between the hot coals and the bottom of the water pan.

The commercial fire grate (on the Fatboy & larger models and optional on the smaller cookers), is suspended above the bottom of the cooker.  An ash pan sits on the floor to collect the ashes for disposal.  This grate is made of expanded metal to allow the ash to drop through onto the ash pan.

The stainless cooking racks are evenly spaced and mounted on rails that allow you to slide them out for easy access to the items that you're cooking.

The back wall of the cooker is hollow and seperated into 3 chambers.  The 2 outside chambers allow smoke & heat to travel from the fire box, up the back of the cooker, and into the top of the cooking chamber.  The heat & smoke are then drawn down through the cooking chamber (and over and around the meat) to the bottom of the cooker where the exhaust port is located just above the water pan.  The exhaust then runs up the middle of the rear wall of the cooker to the vent on the top of the cooker.

Here's a shot of the top vents or point of entry for heat & smoke into the cooking chamber. And this is a shot of the exhaust port at the bottom of the cooker. The air flow is controlled by two vents at the bottom of the cooker. The vents have slider openings and one is located on the right front side, the other is on the left rear. The exhaust stack on the top of the cooker is very simple and has a door to swing over the opening. On the Fatboy, I always cooked with the exhaust wide open. The Pro Jr. works a little differently and I run with it about half open. Finally, when you're done cooking on a Backwoods you will have to drain & dispose of the greasy water in the water pan. There's a large drain valve on the side of the cooker to help with that task since the water pans aren't removable unless custom ordered. That's a quick (and picture heavy) overview of how a Backwoods Smoker is put together. There are variations and you an customize your cooker. However, for the mid-sized cookers this is pretty accurate.

Questions about a Backwoods Smoker? I'd be happy to help. Drop me a note or leave a comment below.

Cheers,

Braddog

Update: Backwoods Pro Jr

If you're a frequent visitor to GrillandBarrel.com, you know that I was cooking on a Backwoods Fatboy before and have since upgraded to a Backwoods Pro Jr.  I certainly notice a few differences, and an inquiry from one of my brethren over at BBQ-Brethren.com prompted to spend a little time documenting some of them.  So in no particular order, here are a few noticable differences.

Fuel Consumption:  It stands to reason that the bigger cooker will need more fuel, but I didn't expect the difference to be quite as big as it is.  On the Fatboy, I would use a half a bag of Kingsford briquettes for a 5-6 hr rib cook.  The Pro Jr took a whole bag, and then some.

Water Consumption:  Just like fuel, the Pro Jr uses more water than the Fatboy.  Again, my first cook was ribs and I expected a full water pan would last through the duration of a 5-6 cook.  Not so, at about the 5 hr mark, I was out of water.

Temperature control:  I noticed that I had a harder time getting the cooker to 250 (the temperature that I usually cook at).  The Pro Jr seemed to want to settle in at 225 and I eventually made peace with leaving it there instead of trying to get it to 250.  I also ran the bottom vent a little wider than I typically would have on the Fatboy, but frankly that could have had as much to do with the weather conditions as anything.

This is a big ol' cooker and I'm looking forward to firing it up this weekend and working on competition butts & brisket.  I'll keep you posted on any new observations.  In the meantime, here are a few more shots of the Pro Jr.

Braddog with the Fatboy on the left and the Pro Jr on the right 5 cooking racks on the Pro Jr with better clearance than the Fatboy

Auto water on the Pro Jr.

Cheers,

Braddog

The Hunt for Capacity

Well it's only been a year, but I feel like I need more room on the BBQ pit again.  You see, I'd been cooking on a Big Green Egg & a Bubba Keg but I continually needed more space that I just couldn't get with the kamado platform. 

Don't get me wrong, I love my Big Green Egg and am a huge advocate.  In fact, I often do demonstrations for the local dealer and have sold an untold number for them and to friends and family who have acquired one since I did. 

The problem is, when you start turning out good BBQ folks begin to ask you to cook for a variety of events.  I cooked for a good friend's retirement party, a wedding reception, numerous office luncheons, and last year a local fund raiser.

Now I suppose I could say no but the truth is that I get a kick out of providing good BBQ to folks and seeing their reaction.  Maybe I'm just an egomaniac but I figure as long as I have the ability to cook for these events, why not?  Hey, it keeps me off the streets!

So while I'd love to have a big Ole Hickory pit mounted on a trailer, that's probably not gonna happen given that I can't park a rig like that in my yard.  I can however continue to go vertical.  My Backwoods cooker does a great job in a footprint that fits nicely in my garage.  Luckily, there are several larger cookers from Backwoods that fit in only a slightly larger footprint. 

I've located a Pro Jr. from Backwoods that I'm trying to acquire.  That should double my capacity and hold me for awhile!  :)

I'll keep you posted and in the meantime, let me kow if you're interested in a slightly used Backwoods Fatboy.

Cheers,
Braddog

Update: Pig-a-palooza 2010

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I volunteered to help with the cooking at a local fund raiser.  The main course was to be a whole hog, but there were also plenty of pork butts & ribs to cook too.

We convened on the cooking site at 3:00pm on Friday and began preparing the rotissiere/spit that we would use to cook the hog.  Now, I'd never done a whole hog before but one of the volunteers was experienced with the process so he took the lead.

We prepped the hog, got it mounted on the spit, and had the first coals under the 159 lb. guest of honor shortly before 6:00pm.  We had a large trailer-mounted pit that we used for the ongoing process of lighting fresh coals and readying them for shoveling under the spit.

We decided that we'd use my Backwoods Fatboy to cook the butts and ribs.  We picked up my cooker and had 12 boneless pork butts (~60 lbs.) on by 9:00pm.  That would allow us to get the butts done and the ribs started early in the morning and hopefully have things finishing up by the noon serving time.

It was all revelry and good times early on, but slowly the observers drifted off to their homes for a comfortable night's rest as the night wore on.  By 1:00am we were down to three guys who were committed to the process and whatever outcome morning would bring.  We had one close call around that same time.  We hadn't anticipated that the hog would shrink as much as it did, and we had to readjust the clamps that held it on the spit to keep it from flopping around and coming apart.

The hog finished up around 7:00am, about the same time that we began taking pork butts off of the Fatboy and started putting the ribs on.  We had the hog picked by 8:00 or so.  We kept it in pans on the pit we used for charcoal starting and waited for lunchtime.

Once we pulled the pork butts and began to serve lunch, it became clear to us that the pulled pork butts were much tastier than the whole hog.  Over the course of the afternoon, we served all the pulled pork and the ribs.  We only served about half of the pickings from the whole hog.

So here are a couple of observations about my first time doing a whole hog.

• I don't care for it.  There's so much of it and no real good way to season it, so it ends up tasting mosly like pork roast.
• I think we cooked it too fast early on.  The pit that we rented for the event had no thermometer, so we were cooking by feel.  I think we should have started at a lower temp.
• Doing a whole hog is really all about the process and presentation.  For pure eating pleasure, I think the pulled pork and ribs were much better.

After tending the pits for 23 straight hours, I'm beat.  But I do feel a sense of satisfaction and pride when I see folks' reaction to our efforts.

Additionally, we helped a great cause.  I hope the whole event was successful enough to warrant doing it again next year, cause I had a blast.

Cheers,
Braddog

First Overnighter on the Backwoods FatBoy

With the long holiday weekend, I decided that I had plenty of time to pull an overnighter on the Fatboy.  So, I picked up a brisket & a pork butt and decided that I'd cook on Sunday night for the Memorial Holiday on Monday.

I loaded up the firebox about 8:30pm on Sunday evening and had the cooker read to put the meat in by 10:00pm.  I'd done a couple of long burns just to get a feel for how long the cooker would run on a single load of charcoal.  I was expecting ~8-9hrs.

The meat went on at 10:00pm and I topped off the water pan & charcoal pan around 11:30pm, then hit the rack.  I was up 5:00am to check and I was pleased to find the cooker chugging along at 250*, so I decided to grab a couple of more hours. 

At 7:00am, it was still hanging on to 250* like a bad habit.  I inserted my meat probes and was surprised to find that they were both nearly done.  I was expecting the cook to last until sometime closer to noon.  At 8:00am, the brisket went in the cooler and the butt followed at 8:45am.

I had the end of a beef tenderloin ready, so I popped it in the cooker and it's roasting now as I type this.

I'm really surprised about a couple of things:

• I'm getting a really long burn from this fire.  Longer than I'd ever hoped for.
• The meat seems to get done much quicker than I'm used to.  I'd noticed this with ribs and pork steaks also.

I'm gonna have lots of opportunites to cook this summer, so I'm glad to be getting this practice in.  Hope you have/had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend.

Cheers,
Braddog

Learning on the Backwoods Fatboy

I've done a couple of short cooks on the new Fatboy so far.  Today, I did a variety of items.  I picked up a rack of St. Louis cut spare ribs, a couple of pork tenderloins, the neighbors brought over a couple of racks of baby back ribs, and a couple of hot links.

I'm getting more comfortable with temperature control, but I have to confess that I haven't gotten used to the water pan and the mess associated with it and the ash pan.  I also haven't gotten used to the fuel consumption.  I've been pretty spoiled by the fuel efficiency of the Big Green Egg.  I don't think I'll ever have a cooker that's as efficient as my Egg.

In any event, here are a couple of shots of today's efforts.

Cheers,
Braddog

Update: New Backwoods Fat Boy

As I mentioned previsously, I ordered a new cooker from Backwoods Smokers.  It's the Fat Boy model and for me it seems like a good balance of capacity and cost.

Well, yesterday I made the trip to Cissna Park, IL to pick it up.  I'd met Brian Luke at the Murphysboro, IL BBQ competition last fall.  He and his wife were very accomodating when I stumbled upon their cook site and asked a ton of questions about the Backwoods cookers he was going to be cooking on that weekend (their team is called "It's Five O'clock Somewhere").  And when I was ready to order the Fat Boy, Brian was again very easy to work with.  If you're shopping for one of these things and live in the midwest, I can't think of anyone that I'd rather deal with.

I got the cooker home about 2:30 in the afternoon.  I was cautioned about putting casters on the cooker, but based on how I store and use my cookers I proceeded with putting casters on it while it was on its back in my Yukon.

I got it put together and decided to build a small fire to get the lay of the land.  I followed the steps that Old Dave from the Backwoods forum recently posted and had the cooker running at 250* in about an hour.  After letting it run for a bit, I couldn't resist putting a snack on so I pulled some biscuits out of the freezer, laid out a dozen strips of pig candy, and stuck a fatty on.

Just as we were getting ready to enjoy the first taste, tornado sirens sounded.  But we settled into the garage, rode the storm out, and had sausage biscuits while watching mother nature's light show. 

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the new pit.  I've got lots to learn about maintaining temps, cooking over a water pan, and dealing with the clean up of this new cooker.

I'll keep you posted on my adventures.

Cheers,
Braddog

St. Louis Home Fires

Although I'm very happy with my Big Green Egg, I've been thinking about a cabinet style smoker for capacity.  A few times I've been asked to cook for parties and the like and I just don't have the capacity that I need to be able to take on those jobs.  So, I've kinda been thinking about my next cooker.

On Friday afternoon, I headed out to West St. Louis County to check out a local grill and fireplace shop that I've heard about.  They're listed as a dealer for Backwoods, Cookshack, Traeger & Big Green Egg grills & smokers, just to name a few. 

The shop isn't huge, but they have a decent amount of their space dedicated to BBQ gear, including everything from gas grill parts, grills & smokers, smoking woods, charcoal, rubs, and sauces (the rest is dedicated to fireplaces and the like).  I found the staff to be pretty knowledgeable about the gear they sell and when I told them about Grill & Barrel, they quickly turned me onto the St. Louis BBQ Society and some local events that are planned for later this year.

I picked up a few things from the store and I plan to go back and get a first hand look at a Backwoods Party in a couple of weeks.  So if you're in the St. Louis area, support your local dealer and give the guys at St. Louis Home Fires a shot the next time you're in need of some BBQ gear.

Here's their contact info:

St. Louis Home Fires
(636) 256-6564
15053 Manchester Road
Ballwin, MO  63011
2 Miles West of Woodsmill / 141

Cheers,
Braddog