TLDR cliff notes:
-Assassin is a great company to deal with
-Smoker performs excellent, zero regrets on purchase
-If you're considering one they're awesome, buy it
Well after 6 years of cooking on my WSM 22 and many great meals I decided to swing for the fences after determining I'm truly dedicated to this hobby for life. A man's gotta eat right?
I had purchased my WSM22 by emptying my spare change jar and hadn't used charcoal in my life just a gasser and really cut my teeth on it. Made many mistakes in the beginning and by the last few years was turning out some great food. I don't post a lot here but luckily sites like this taught me almost everything I know as I silently absorbed the information. I never dreamt I'd be able to afford any of these smokers I've lusted after for years so soon but years of frugality, combined with good fortune getting a much better job several years ago made it all come together. A wife's blessing always helps too
Originally, I was pretty sure I was going to own a Yoder pellet unit. Then I learned enough about Pellet grills to decide they weren't the direction I'm looking for. Then I was sure I was going to get a Shirley Stick burner to the point I contacted Tyler and found out the longer wait times than usual. Then I was looking at other offerings such as Lang, Lonestarz, etc. Then I looked in the mirror, did some deep thinking, and was honest with myself. As much as I want to tend a fire and play with a big bad stick burner I have a family with a young kid, I'm an overtime hound at work, and we're just going to get busier as Jr. gets older and more involved. I'd like something as set and forget as my WSM was but with much more space. Also, I wanted something that could run on standard easy to acquire fuel such as charcoal briquettes that was built for a lifetime and low maintenance. I also live in one of the snow capitals of the country so insulated is a bonus for efficiency and stability.
Then I came across gravity-fed smokers and settled on a 24" unit from Assassin. It was incredibly easy to customize how I wanted it and it arrived at my house in 7 weeks after an 8 week quote. Jeff, and Rachel were great to deal with.
Now that I'm off from work on an emergency only on-call basis I've been really putting it through the paces after about a month of ownership. Using a weed burner barely running I can get it lit in 5 minutes and up to temp with the pit-viper and fireboard drive in 45 min or so. I leave the remaining charcoal in the chute after each cook and relight/top off because it is used so frequently. I'd pull the grate and empty if for extended storage.
I had a little bit of a learning curve to figure out the best way to load the ashtray with wood to get the smoke I'm looking for when I want it but have settled on loading it as full as I can with mini-splits and really poking the coals so a lot of fresh hot embers fall on the wood 5 minutes before loading food. This gives me perfect thin blue for around 2-2.5 hours. I don't need to add anymore wood after that. I've read the threads of people complaining about not enough smoke flavor, or the wood just catches fire and turns to fuel. I experienced those issues at the beginning. My user error was just putting the wood in and it would completely dry then ignite. I wouldn't have the smoke at want when the food went on. Or I lightly tapped the grate and didn't get enough embers to fall on the wood to get it going quickly. Again, I didn't have the right smoke I wanted when the food went on. The smoke flavor is so much cleaner than what I got off my WSM. It tastes much more like food I've ate off a stick burner. I'm rather critical of my own bbq and the st louis cut ribs I did yesterday I really can't imagine how anyone on earth could cook them any better.
I did a butt the other day and it took close to 11hrs unwrapped at 250 and I used about half a chute. In my WSM I used a wide array of lump and briquettes. In this assassin it burns so clean that I've had great results with briquettes. Both KBB and Home depot Embers (Royal Oak) briquettes. I can't tell any flavor difference between lump and briquettes. I was hoping for this as I'm tired of having to mail order to get decent lump as my local options are limited.
Another things I learned. Make sure you have the lid-open-detection on your controller activated. I'd overshoot temp by 20-30 degrees and it would take a whole hour to come back down because it holds heat so well. I toyed with the fireboard drive settings and settled on keeping the fan off for 4 minutes after the door is opened and it gradually comes back up to temp with no overshoot in short order.
I got 2 extra shelves added for increased rib and chicken capacity if it's ever needed. I got oversized no-flat casters for easy moving and all stainless hardware and latches.
Bottom line: If you're looking at a Gravity-Fed cooker, yes, they're worth the money. They perform as advertised, and Assassin is a great company to deal with. Hopefully some of my growing pains using a completely new smoker design can help another person down the road!
-Assassin is a great company to deal with
-Smoker performs excellent, zero regrets on purchase
-If you're considering one they're awesome, buy it
Well after 6 years of cooking on my WSM 22 and many great meals I decided to swing for the fences after determining I'm truly dedicated to this hobby for life. A man's gotta eat right?
I had purchased my WSM22 by emptying my spare change jar and hadn't used charcoal in my life just a gasser and really cut my teeth on it. Made many mistakes in the beginning and by the last few years was turning out some great food. I don't post a lot here but luckily sites like this taught me almost everything I know as I silently absorbed the information. I never dreamt I'd be able to afford any of these smokers I've lusted after for years so soon but years of frugality, combined with good fortune getting a much better job several years ago made it all come together. A wife's blessing always helps too
Originally, I was pretty sure I was going to own a Yoder pellet unit. Then I learned enough about Pellet grills to decide they weren't the direction I'm looking for. Then I was sure I was going to get a Shirley Stick burner to the point I contacted Tyler and found out the longer wait times than usual. Then I was looking at other offerings such as Lang, Lonestarz, etc. Then I looked in the mirror, did some deep thinking, and was honest with myself. As much as I want to tend a fire and play with a big bad stick burner I have a family with a young kid, I'm an overtime hound at work, and we're just going to get busier as Jr. gets older and more involved. I'd like something as set and forget as my WSM was but with much more space. Also, I wanted something that could run on standard easy to acquire fuel such as charcoal briquettes that was built for a lifetime and low maintenance. I also live in one of the snow capitals of the country so insulated is a bonus for efficiency and stability.
Then I came across gravity-fed smokers and settled on a 24" unit from Assassin. It was incredibly easy to customize how I wanted it and it arrived at my house in 7 weeks after an 8 week quote. Jeff, and Rachel were great to deal with.
Now that I'm off from work on an emergency only on-call basis I've been really putting it through the paces after about a month of ownership. Using a weed burner barely running I can get it lit in 5 minutes and up to temp with the pit-viper and fireboard drive in 45 min or so. I leave the remaining charcoal in the chute after each cook and relight/top off because it is used so frequently. I'd pull the grate and empty if for extended storage.
I had a little bit of a learning curve to figure out the best way to load the ashtray with wood to get the smoke I'm looking for when I want it but have settled on loading it as full as I can with mini-splits and really poking the coals so a lot of fresh hot embers fall on the wood 5 minutes before loading food. This gives me perfect thin blue for around 2-2.5 hours. I don't need to add anymore wood after that. I've read the threads of people complaining about not enough smoke flavor, or the wood just catches fire and turns to fuel. I experienced those issues at the beginning. My user error was just putting the wood in and it would completely dry then ignite. I wouldn't have the smoke at want when the food went on. Or I lightly tapped the grate and didn't get enough embers to fall on the wood to get it going quickly. Again, I didn't have the right smoke I wanted when the food went on. The smoke flavor is so much cleaner than what I got off my WSM. It tastes much more like food I've ate off a stick burner. I'm rather critical of my own bbq and the st louis cut ribs I did yesterday I really can't imagine how anyone on earth could cook them any better.
I did a butt the other day and it took close to 11hrs unwrapped at 250 and I used about half a chute. In my WSM I used a wide array of lump and briquettes. In this assassin it burns so clean that I've had great results with briquettes. Both KBB and Home depot Embers (Royal Oak) briquettes. I can't tell any flavor difference between lump and briquettes. I was hoping for this as I'm tired of having to mail order to get decent lump as my local options are limited.
Another things I learned. Make sure you have the lid-open-detection on your controller activated. I'd overshoot temp by 20-30 degrees and it would take a whole hour to come back down because it holds heat so well. I toyed with the fireboard drive settings and settled on keeping the fan off for 4 minutes after the door is opened and it gradually comes back up to temp with no overshoot in short order.
I got 2 extra shelves added for increased rib and chicken capacity if it's ever needed. I got oversized no-flat casters for easy moving and all stainless hardware and latches.
Bottom line: If you're looking at a Gravity-Fed cooker, yes, they're worth the money. They perform as advertised, and Assassin is a great company to deal with. Hopefully some of my growing pains using a completely new smoker design can help another person down the road!
