New Orleans Eats Forums at NOLAEats.com

I BBQing tomorrow, doing a pork shoulder and a few racks of ribs. I really want to drink a bottle of wine but the fact that I have to get up at 4am to light the smoker is really deterring me. Life's little problems huh?

Life could be MUCH worse, my friend. Think of the things we consider "little problems", ehhh? Life is good!

Christ, I remember about 20 years ago I decided to smoke a turkey. Got up before dawn. By the time MIL was here, noonish, I was half in the bag!

(We normally dine 7pm-ish..... his ma wants to eat EARLY....thus, she had a good turkey and a high daughter in law.

I remember a few thanksgivings that we had to take a nap before we could finish cooking...started drinking mimosas way too early!

What fun, huh? I smile/grin at memories like that.... no regrets!

My smoker of choice is a Weber, and it's air-tightness and degree of vent control allows one to fire it up for extended cooks just before midnight and have it percolate quite nicely and steadily through the night until morning without much, if any, tending. Very handy for those long pork butt cooks.

I need to get a smoker that allows me to do that LNS, I can easily stay up till midnight, certainly much easier than getting up at 4. I've tried a couple of times with friends to just stay up all night BBQing (and drinking) for a noon lunch and neither time did it turn out well. I've seen those pellet grills and while they seem pretty nice, to me part of the fun is tending the fire. Is 5:30 too early for a Bloody Mary?

Jesse wrote: Is 5:30 too early for a Bloody Mary?

hardly...I drink Heineken's w/ my scrambled eggs:toast:

Jesse wrote:I need to get a smoker that allows me to do that LNS, I can easily stay up till midnight, certainly much easier than getting up at 4. I've tried a couple of times with friends to just stay up all night BBQing (and drinking) for a noon lunch and neither time did it turn out well. I've seen those pellet grills and while they seem pretty nice, to me part of the fun is tending the fire. Is 5:30 too early for a Bloody Mary?

Jesse's right about the Weber. If you simply invest in a remote temp sensor, you can just go to bed and get up, maybe twice during the night, and things will be swell for lunch. I use one of these babies and love it.

http://www.klockit.com/products/product.aspx?sku=32268

The description isn't the best. It has an alarm setting on it that you can formulate a hysteresis into so that the alarm will go off if the cooking temp gets too cold or too hot (think thermostat with an alarm, sort of).

Once you do a few butts or shoulders on the thing, and get the coal settings figured out, the Weber is about as easy to operate as opening a couple of beers. My only other advice is to get the biggest Weber that you can afford. If you are cooking one giant hunk, you might as well cook 5 and freeze some and give some to people that you like. It's the gift that keeps on giving. This is what I have...

http://www.weber.com/grills/?glid=5&mid=118

They last forever, parts are really cheap, and, if you keep it clean, you might not buy another for 10 years or longer. Lowes and Home Depot both carry them.

edible complex wrote:hardly...I drink Heineken's w/ my scrambled eggs:toast:

My husband swears that combination produces more gas than anything he's ever experienced. Thankfully that was in his frat days.

jodyrah wrote:My husband swears that combination produces more gas than anything he's ever experienced. Thankfully that was in his frat days.

He's probably thinking of pickled eggs and beer.