Direct cooking on a Pitmaker BBQ vault

jmoney7269 · Feb 19, 2013

Yesterday I spoke to George about my new idea of a direct cooker BBQ vault. His reccomendation before I brought the vault back to him to be modified for a removable drip pan, try this. Take out your fire basket, make sure the drip pan is pretty clean, remove rack 1-2 and set the fire basket on the bottom grate slide. Preheat as normal and then fire the coals with the torch. He mentioned that Craig sherry does it with his safes so I had to try it. Kept the pit around 350 and got back that live, direct roasted flavor that I like from the UDS. Cooked the chicken on the 4th rack. Definitely a experiment vault or safe owners should try. The two downfalls are racks dont cook nearly as evenly and if your vault is sealed very well like mine, when you close the door hard to seal it good, you blow ash all over the inside of the pit. DOH! I like my pit as free of grit on the cooking chamber as I can get it so this experiment is a pass/fail ordeal for me. Fun experiment though.

JS-TX · Feb 19, 2013

I don't own a pitmaker but this is pretty interesting. Is this only for cooking chicken or all your meats directly?

jmoney7269 · Feb 19, 2013

JS-TX said:
I don't own a pitmaker but this is pretty interesting. Is this only for cooking chicken or all your meats directly?

From What george said, there are alot of people that do it. Can't say exactly what I do to my brisket after its finished and rested but it does involve a UDS the last 30 min before turn in. :tape2:

hcj3rd · Feb 19, 2013

JS-TX said:
I don't own a pitmaker but this is pretty interesting. Is this only for cooking chicken or all your meats directly?

I have only seen people do this for chicken. Works pretty good.

treytexag · Feb 19, 2013

jmoney7269 said:
From What george said, there are alot of people that do it. Can't say exactly what I do to my brisket after its finished and rested but it does involve a UDS the last 30 min before turn in. :tape2:

Interesting! Jmoney, glad you're not givin' all your secrets away . . . ..!! ;-)

JS-TX · Feb 19, 2013

Well I know for me I didn't start getting walks in chicken till I started cooking them directly over lump in my UDS.

jmoney7269 · Feb 20, 2013

JS-TX said:
Well I know for me I didn't start getting walks in chicken till I started cooking them directly over lump in my UDS.

+1
I have also seen Howard Muniz of orange maple cookers take several first place walks on chicken on nothing more than a fully lit charcoal chimney of kingsford dumped in a old smokey, no wood for smoking. I honestly hate smoking with kingsford. But since so many people grew up with that taste, it's widely known. I didnt start winning briskets till I put just enough to give a slight charcoal flavor. Prob 20 unlit briquettes to a 10 lb bag of lump. It breaks my heart every time I do it but my last 4 comps of 35-46 team fields I have went 3rd, 1st, 2nd, 1st.

JS-TX · Feb 20, 2013

jmoney7269 said:
+1
I have also seen Howard Muniz of orange maple cookers take several first place walks on chicken on nothing more than a fully lit charcoal chimney of kingsford dumped in a old smokey, no wood for smoking. I honestly hate smoking with kingsford. But since so many people grew up with that taste, it's widely known. I didnt start winning briskets till I put just enough to give a slight charcoal flavor. Prob 20 unlit briquettes to a 10 lb bag of lump. It breaks my heart every time I do it but my last 4 comps of 35-46 team fields I have went 3rd, 1st, 2nd, 1st.

I know that exact smell and taste you are talking about, it takes me back to when I first started Qing. I used to like it too but since I went to lump I don't care for it anymore. I can see why you use it for comps - I feel your pain. lol

I'm thinking of getting an old smokey for comps too, it's much portable than a UDS. But then again after looking at Donnie's UDS makes me want to keep it in the rotation and perhaps pimp it out a little :biggrin1:

jmoney7269 · Feb 20, 2013

Man as far as UDS go, I don't think there is a better cooker out there for smaller amounts of chicken, especially for comps. I hit mine with some fresh loaded lump a few briquettes :tsk: and hit it with the torch for about 2 min, set the guru to 350, throw on a chunk of pecan and I'm ready to cook in 5 min.

Direct cooking on a Pitmaker BBQ vault

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