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

The Upgrade: Backwoods Smokers Pro. Jr.

Much to my wife's dismay, I've upgraded....for the second year in a row.  Last year, I acquired a Backwoods Smokers Fatboy.  That upgrade more than doubled my capacity from the Big Green Egg, and I've really enjoyed cooking on a vertical, insulated cooker.  However, I learned very quickly that the stated capactiy of the Fatboy really wasn't accurate.  To cook pork butt & brisket well, the cooker really could only accomodate half of the available cooking racks due to limited clearance between them.

Traveling GearAdditionally, it seems that the more I cook, the more chances I have to cook.  And I'm talking about cooking for larger groups, fund raisers, family reunions, wedding receptions, and so on.  While I don't need the extra capacity every day, there are a half dozen opportunities per year to really take advantage and put on a big feed.

So, when I stumbled upon an opportunity to acquire a larger Backwoods Smoker, the Pro Jr., I couldn't pass it up.  A competition cook out of Columbus, GA had decided it was too large for cooking competitions and had downsized.  That may be the only time I've ever heard of a pitmaster downsizing.  Usually, Pitmasters are like boat captains and jonseing for bigger pit or boat respectively.  So I borrowed a trailer, made arrangements to meet Quenut halfway, and headed out to pick up the new cooker.

Before & AfterAfter a 700 mile round trip, a stop over in Nashville to hang out with Carey Bringle of Peg Leg Porker, and lunch at Martin's BBQ Joint, I made it home with the new cooker and the capacity to cook 35 pork butts, 36 sides of ribs, or 16 full packer cut briskets.  

That ought to hold me for another year!

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

BBQin' in a Hurricane

Jimmy Buffet went Surfin' In A Hurricane , but I swear I thought I was cookin' in one overnight.  We had straight line winds of 60+ MPH, tornado warnings, storms with "rotation", and a hellacious rain here in the St. Louis area.

But the Fatboy never wavered from it's mission.  I chased temps a little bit early on due to the gusty winds, but once I finally got it settled in it held on to 250* like a bad habit. 

I woke up this morning to find Butts & Briskets ready to wrap.  I'm holding them in my new Cambro for lunch time (more on my new Cambro later).

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