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I just hire a new employee

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HBMTN

is One Chatty Farker
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His name is "Sleep" baby :becky: I just ordered a new FEC120 for catering in 2014 and it should be here in the next 10 days. After going strong for 4 years with a Lang 84 and another stick burner it will be nice to "set it and forget it"

Plus when we sell at our roadside spot I usually take my trailer in on Friday evening and set it up and then come back home and cook all night on the Lang and pull it to town Saturday morning and vend. By Saturday evening after being up most of the night I am dead. This will allow me to get home Saturday evening and reload the FEC and go back and vend again on Sunday and get two whole nights of sleep while doubling my gross sales for the weekend!
 
Any worries on the difference in taste and texture going with the pellet pooper?
 
Bbq Bubba said:
Any worries on the difference in taste and texture going with the pellet pooper?
Click to expand...

I've had a lot but have researched it for 3 months and everyone that I have talked to who cooks on them and all info I have found on the net has been 100% positive feedback. I only found 1 case where someone was not happy and they changed to a different brand of pellet that cured the issue they were having. I guess we'll see how it goes, I'll keep ya posted.
 
I will be interested to see what your conclusions are as well. I have a theory that I have as a result of watching the food truck phenomena in San Francisco (a difficult and sophisticated restaurant market) and this would be related.

I figure that people adjust their expectations of food, based upon a variety of factors, but, chief amongst those is not price, but, rather, location and venue. Even a dive joint, because it is 'brick & mortar', suffers from the expectation that the food must be the same every time. There are expecations of permanence associated with a real building. When the same people buy from a trailer, despite the same, or higher costs and even the same location, there is an allowance that they are some how buying "pirate" food and a little variation is to be expected, even desired.
 
HBMTN said:
I've had a lot but have researched it for 3 months and everyone that I have talked to who cooks on them and all info I have found on the net has been 100% positive feedback. I only found 1 case where someone was not happy and they changed to a different brand of pellet that cured the issue they were having. I guess we'll see how it goes, I'll keep ya posted.
Click to expand...

Just remember its positive feedback from people who probably have never cooked over wood! :wink:

Congrats on the upgrade. Get some rest. :thumb:
 
Bubba I had two people that had for sure gone from stick burners to the FEC and they both loved the FEC. I will surely post my opinions once I give it a try. Could be a few weeks before delivery though, I have not gotten a date from them as of yet.
 
landarc I'll have to agree with you, I think a lot of the time anymore that 98% of people would not know good BBQ if it fell in their mouth. There are a few places with in an hour of me that serve some of the sorriest pork one could ever cook but the places have a great atmosphere ad the reviews online are great and people love the BBQ at them.

I know of one that cooks pork loin in an oven, does not even have a smoker on the premises, chops it to almost hamburger with a buffalo chopper and people go crazy over it.
 
I did a lot of research as well to see if a BBQ restaurant was feasible with a non stick burner. I found that the pellet smokers are able to get really good results. The electric smokers are pretty good as well, but the pellet smokers are much better.
My restaurant is in a state where the HD is pretty strict about outdoor pits, so I went with what I thought was best for what will fit in my place. I ordered 2 Pro Smoker pellet smokers which are very similar the the FEC120, so I will be interested to see how the OP fares. I will know within the next 2 weeks if my smokers will live up to what I need for my restaurant.
 
bjbbq said:
I did a lot of research as well to see if a BBQ restaurant was feasible with a non stick burner. I found that the pellet smokers are able to get really good results. The electric smokers are pretty good as well, but the pellet smokers are much better.
My restaurant is in a state where the HD is pretty strict about outdoor pits, so I went with what I thought was best for what will fit in my place. I ordered 2 Pro Smoker pellet smokers which are very similar the the FEC120, so I will be interested to see how the OP fares. I will know within the next 2 weeks if my smokers will live up to what I need for my restaurant.
Click to expand...



What town are you in?
 
The FEC was shipped Tuesday and arrived on UPS Freight today, I had it shipped to my work place and we unloaded it with a Bobcat and forks right on to the back of my truck. Strapped it down and headed home, I thought maybe they were over estimating when they said the shipping weight was 515lbs but the thing is pretty stout. Now I have to figure out how to get it off my truck in the morning.
 
It made it to the ground safely, we unpack-aged it and plan to give it a test run tomorrow. Gonna let it season for about 3 hours and then put a few yard birds on for dinner. I must say it's an expensive purchase but CookShack does load you up with tons of free (but highly paid for LOL) rubs and sauces, along with a smok'n book and several other goodies. The unit is larger than I imagined, my 13 year old son is in the pic to give it some scale. I could not find many pic's online that gave it scale when I was looking.

 
Well today I fired up the new FEC120 with in 15 minutes it was at 200 degrees and I run it several hours to break it in. I had to cook today for a tasting for a future booking bride and I cooked for her on the Lang 84 so I decided to cook half a pack of chicken legs on the Lang and the other half on the FEC. Both went on at the same time running about 260 degrees each. Chicken came off of both at the same time. All chicken in the pic came off the FEC except for one piece which came off the Lang. Both were great but I'd say if I had to pick a winner for today's chicken I'd pick the FEC. That could be that subconsciously I'm trying to justify spending $5500 too LOL.

The only thing I can call BS on so far is that Cookshack says the unit will burn 1/2lb of pellets an hour at 250 degrees. That is BS I run the unit set on 225 degrees for 3.5 hours and 250 for 4.5 hours and burned about 14lbs of pellets. By their calculations of burn-age I should have cooked at least 28 hours off of that. Which piece came off the Lang????


 
HBMTN said:
Well today I fired up the new FEC120 with in 15 minutes it was at 200 degrees and I run it several hours to break it in. I had to cook today for a tasting for a future booking bride and I cooked for her on the Lang 84 so I decided to cook half a pack of chicken legs on the Lang and the other half on the FEC. Both went on at the same time running about 260 degrees each. Chicken came off of both at the same time. All chicken in the pic came off the FEC except for one piece which came off the Lang. Both were great but I'd say if I had to pick a winner for today's chicken I'd pick the FEC. That could be that subconsciously I'm trying to justify spending $5500 too LOL.

The only thing I can call BS on so far is that Cookshack says the unit will burn 1/2lb of pellets an hour at 250 degrees. That is BS I run the unit set on 225 degrees for 3.5 hours and 250 for 4.5 hours and burned about 14lbs of pellets. By their calculations of burn-age I should have cooked at least 28 hours off of that. Which piece came off the Lang????
Click to expand...

The top left one?
 
Well the first run with butts on the FEC is complete. I did 7 butts on Monday night. I put them on at 9:45pm at 225 degrees. They were huge butts 10 to 12lb average. I slept a full night :becky: at 7am they were 161 degrees, at noon they were still only 183 so I bumped the pit temp up to 260 because I had to leave with them at 2pm for a school fundraiser. I pulled them from the cooker at 1:50pm and they were at 194 degrees so they spent right at 15 hours in the FEC. Color was great I'd give them a 10 there, texture and tenderness another 10 they were on the money. Aroma gets a 10 as well. Taste ........ well the jury is a little confused here. I want to say there was not enough smoke but i know that is not so because 15 hour in smoke and a good smoke ring was there. There was a taste difference and I'm not going to say bad better or worse but just a difference that I can't put my finger on yet. I used the Cookshack hickory pellets that came with the cooker (burnt 20lbs in 16 hours also) I believe the difference is that the FEC is getting it's heat from fire instead on a coal base and that it is burning much cleaner by doing so. I also think that the wood pellets are much fryer than firewood that I use and I think that makes some difference. Another factor is my Lang and my other offset have either a tuning plate or reverse flow plate that is extremely hot that rendered fat drips on to and and produces some of the smoke good or bad as well where the FEC has no heat from below and does not produce this effect. Over all I think I can work things out to produce a great quality on the FEC. I'm going to play around with a few different wood pellets and see what happens. Ultimatley with my business growing I need some sleep and can not continue to wor 36 hours straight 2 and 3 days a week and try to work a full time job on top of that so the FEC is going to be very nice. I posted a few pic's below but the pic's do not do the color justice. I turned the top 2 fat cap up as they suggest and the rest are cap down.



 
The difference in wood pellets might help, or so I have heard. Those sure look great, and your customers will tell you about the end product.
 
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