REC-TEC BFG shipping early!

[SmoothBoarBBQ]

Hey All,

So I just got the word that my new BFG had shipped, and I looked up the tracking number and it's already scheduled for delivery tomorrow. Unfortunately I'll be in Virginia at a competition, but I should get the grill on Monday afternoon. They were talking shipping late April / early May so this is a pleasant surprise.

I'll do a solid review of the smoker after I've put it through its paces. That video of them cooking all those pork butts blew me away...I never figured it could fit that much food.

https://www.facebook.com/RECTECGrill...9550200747931/

After cook

https://www.facebook.com/RECTECGrill...9037018999153/

[Mike Twangzer]

That is amazing. Congratulations !!! Anxiously waiting for the review with plenty of pictures.

[Big George's BBQ]

Very Nice Congrats

[pjtexas1]

Subscribed!

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[Dweverett]

That's great, looking forward to the first cook!

And if you do decide to do the absurd volume of butts they showed let me know how long it takes for your grease bucket to overflow...

[sudsandswine]

30 butts in that thing? That's kinda crazy. Looking forward to action shots.

[SmoothBoarBBQ]

So I got my Rec Tec BFG yesterday and after a semi-irritating assembly process I did the initial burn in and seasoning.



So since I seasoned it last night I decided to just give it a long run doing a pork butt. This is my first cook on a pellet cooker so I didn't want to risk putting on a bunch of food and screwing something up.



I've been running this all day so far (probably 5 hours or so) and it's holding temps almost perfectly. I did have a temp "spike" when it rose from 250 to 253, but it quickly corrected itself. Smoke smell / aroma is pretty lacking, but I guess that's to be expected with a pellet cooker. Mind you I've been cooking on stickburners for the last 7 years or so. I did run it for the first 2 hours at 200° and that seemed to produce a bit more smoke.

I'll keep on posting in this thread over the next couple of weeks. I'm planning on doing 5 butts, 6 racks of ribs, and some beef short ribs overnight tonight for lunch service tomorrow. So I'll try and remember to get some pics of that and also my overall impressions.

Something of note is that the pellet consumption is quite low compared to what I would have otherwise expected for such a large cooker. Sure there's not much food on it, but after ~5 hours the hopper looks pretty much the same it did when I started. I'm running B&B pellets (Pecan and Apple), but I do have 200Lbs of Grilla Grills pellets on the way.

[Big George's BBQ]

Looks Great Looking forward to your review Congrats and Enjoy

[sleebus.jones]

Originally Posted by SmoothBoarBBQ

Smoke smell / aroma is pretty lacking, but I guess that's to be expected with a pellet cooker.

Not trying to be a jackwagon here but this has not been my experience with my pellet cookers. I have found that my big one (JB) does smoke a bit less than my small one (DC).

Congrats on the new cooker! Maybe the very light load is why you're not getting much smoke? That one butt looks pretty lost in there.

[SmoothBoarBBQ]

Originally Posted by sleebus.jones

Not trying to be a jackwagon here but this has not been my experience with my pellet cookers. I have found that my big one (JB) does smoke a bit less than my small one (DC).

Congrats on the new cooker! Maybe the very light load is why you're not getting much smoke? That one butt looks pretty lost in there.

I've had food from a few different brands of pellet cookers and so far none of them have much smoke at all...Traeger, Rec Tec, Grilla Grills, and Yoder. Mind you I've been a stickburner for the last 7+ years, so maybe it's not an apples to apples comparison.

Right now I'm using B&B Pecan and Apple pellets, and I've got some Grilla Grills pellets on the way. If you think there's better pellets out there I'm all ears. I'm willing to spend the money where it counts and fuel source certainly matters.

New cooker is performing very well though...going to be a learning curve for me just like with any new cooker. I was just reading the manual the Rec Tec has a "LO" temp setting called "Xtreme Smoke" which I guess is similar to the "Super Smoke" feature on the Traeger Timberline series. I'll give that setting a shot next time and see how well it works out.

[PatAttack]

That is a NICE looking smoker.

Congrats!

[BigThicket]

Very nice. Approximately how many brisket do you think it'll smoke at once?

[gtsum]

That thing is huge!

Try lumberjack 100% hickory. Strongest pellet I’ve tried (I haven’t used mesquite though). If a couple hours at super smoke and then at 250 or whenever to cruise to the end isn’t enough smoke, then pellet cookers might not be for your tastes.


Memphis Elite





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[rwalters]

That thing is a beast! Can’t wait to hear whatcha think of the finished product once that lil butt is done and consumed:)

[SmoothBoarBBQ]

So that small pork butt came out very good...nice and tender with a beautiful smoke ring and a very minimal smoke aroma. Bark was good (just salt and pepper) and the smoker performed very well.

@BigThicket, I'm certain I could do 12 briskets at a time if not more. They loaded the thing up with ~30 pork butts in the video I posted in the OP, so I'm sure 12 is a very cautious estimate.

Post cook thoughts : so far so good. Again, I'm really surprised at the performance of this large cooker and the minimal pellet consumption.

@gtsum I can't seem to find Lumberjack locally...all I have access to is B&B from Academy and Pitboss from Walmart. I've got some GrillaGrills pellets coming and I believe they are rebranded Smokering (could be wrong though). I'll run though those and see if they give out a bit more flavor. If not then I'll get a bulk buy of Lumberjack from bbqpelletsonline.com