Shoutout to the old drum smoker at the county fair demo last week

I was helping with the 4H barbecue station over in Tulsa last Saturday, and this beat-up 55 gallon drum rig from the 90s outsmoked every pellet grill on the lot. That thing had no thermometer, just a hole in the lid and a guy who knew when to crack the vent, and the brisket came off with a bark like dark glass. Has anyone else run into an old setup that just flat out works better than the new gear, or am I chasing the wrong dream with my shiny offset?

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1 Comment

nancy8241mo ago

Wait, was the guy running that old drum actually measuring anything by feel, or was he just going off pure habit from decades of cooking on it? Because I'm wondering if the secret is less about the gear and more about the person who's dialed it in for so long that they don't need numbers.