Hey, I looked at every body’s comments, so I thought I would tell you all how I came to this thing. Don’t get me wrong, there is more experience on this board than I’ll ever have. I know BBQ is like religion, so I am just talking about the way I found to get smoke flavor into my food.
It was Thanksgiving 2003, I had a huge turkey I wanted to smoke and it wouldn’t fit in my little Cook N Cajun vertical smoker. So I fabricated the L shaped form and punched a few holes in it. I wanted something that would not dry this huge piece of meat. I have used rails before and they always seemed to dry out the meat. Having the shield prevented direct head from the coal from drying out the meat. I put a pan on top and away I went. The turkey was outstanding with about ¾” of pink smoke penetration.
Further refinements, put the pan level with the food-supporting grill, meaning that the water was right on top of the coals. I eventually noticed was that the device was very forgiving. You could put in too many coals, and the thing would still produce food that had good smoke flavor and still be moist. I found out that the moisture in the kettle transferred heat to the food, it can cook 25% go 30% faster, yet it will taste the same, yet be a bit more moist. Chicken comes out incredibly moist, yet a person can always control the cooking process by amount of coals use of water or taking water away.
You can say you are steaming the food, in stressed over fired conditions but if it simmers down and as the food gets closer to doneness you let it cook without any water in the pan it comes out good. Also the smoke disperses ok in the Kettle, it doesnt all get drawn out of the kettle
The nice thing about having the shield fabricated solid is the one can put food right to the edge and it won’t get burned up. Meaning I can load my Weber to the gills and smoke a lot of food. True you have to move it, but if you get a rib sticking out over the lower grill of a vertical water smoke the same thing will happen.
That’s my story. I really use it a lot, and I don’t have to spend 15-20 minutes scrubbing out the greasy water pan in the vertical smoker, or about 3 or 4 hours into the session clean out the ash so I get enough heat to keep the thing cooking. It’s just a bit easier.
The cost, well I expect the market will get the price down more decent here pretty quick.:shock: If anything, it will give a lot of smokers a new gadget to make in the shop and experiment with. This is a great board with a lot of experience. Barbecue cooking is a big part of my life, I love doing it and I get rewarded when people who I feed enjoy the good taste and the whole table goes quiet for a while they are eating.
Don
