{"id":86,"date":"2011-02-21T10:40:57","date_gmt":"2011-02-21T16:40:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/?p=86"},"modified":"2011-02-21T10:44:24","modified_gmt":"2011-02-21T16:44:24","slug":"the-ultimate-home-bbq-smoker-the-fec-100","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/bbq\/the-ultimate-home-bbq-smoker-the-fec-100\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ultimate “Home” BBQ Smoker, the FEC-100"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Todd Barron @ FoodieCuisine.com<\/h4>\n

A couple of years ago I received a nice bonus and ordered a Cookshack FEC-100 BBQ Smoker<\/a>with some of the proceeds.\u00a0 My wife was nice enough to let me do this and we (yes, we) have never regretted the choice.\u00a0 The Cookshack FEC-100 is a commercial meat smoker that is intended for restaurants or BBQ competitions.\u00a0 You can use it for the home, but it\u2019s overkill for most applications.\u00a0 Even with that, I love it and have used it at least monthly for the past two years.\u00a0 I have cooked for\u00a0my immediate family, our extended family,\u00a0various charities around town, and even for local restaurants (for their workers to consume, not to sell.)<\/p>\n

After waiting for a month, I received the FEC-100 delivered via a freight truck.\u00a0 The unit, without wood in it, weighs\u00a0420 pounds and can\u2019t easily be transported.\u00a0 Although it\u2019s heavy, it\u2019s built on wheels and is easy to move around in a small area.\u00a0 Whenever I cook with mine I wheel it from the garage into the driveway, and then back once complete.\u00a0 I learned very quickly not to leave it in the garage as it generates way too much smoke.\u00a0 I tried venting the smoke but don\u2019t have a proper setup to really do it.\u00a0 That\u2019s ok though as I bought an all-weather cover that allows me to smoke in the rain or snow.<\/p>\n

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Here is the outside of the FEC-100, with the cover pushed back.\u00a0 I cook with the cover on as it\u2019s high-fiber count nylon and is built to be cooked with while on the unit.\u00a0 The FEC-100 is highly insulated and never gets more than warm to the touch.\u00a0 Do NOT do this with other cookers as they will burn the covers and catch on fire.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Here is the\u00a0smoker with the door open.\u00a0 I only have\u00a0two racks in it in this shot.\u00a0 The fire pot at the bottom is where the wood chips pour into (and are ignited.)\u00a0 It generates the heat and the smoker can cook at up to 500 degrees.\u00a0 The foil lined plate is there to prevent fat from dripping into the fire pot.\u00a0 The entire unit is encased in stainless steel with a fire resistant insulation.\u00a0 Cookshack\u2019s description of the construction is \u201cdouble-walled 16-gauge stainless steel interior, 18-gauge stainless steel exterior 850\u00baF Spin-Glas Board \u00ae insulation\u201d\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Here is the control unit on the left side.\u00a0 It has a 20 pound wood hopper and a computer control system.\u00a0 You can set the temperature of the smoker, the time to cook, and the temperature to hold at once the time has expired.\u00a0 The panel shows you how much time is left and the current temp as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Here is a\u00a0closer view of the hopper.\u00a0 For this run I used Applewood.\u00a0 You can buy pellets from various woods such as mesquite, hickory, oak, cherry, etc.\u00a0 I buy my wood from Pellet Grill Outlet<\/a> as they have proven to be the cheapest with the best quality.\u00a0 The only thing you have to watch out for are wood pellets not made for smokers.\u00a0 You do NOT want to use the ones made for heating stoves as they contain chemicals that are not safe for cooking.\u00a0 PGO sells 60 lbs. of pellets for $60 that includes free shipping.<\/p>\n

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Here is the unit with the two 15 pound briskets loaded.\u00a0 I have a drip pan set below them and you\u00a0can see the fire pot running.\u00a0 The unit will hold 100 lbs of pork, or 80 lbs of brisket, or 60 lbs of ribs at one time.<\/p>\n

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Here is a close up of the control unit and the temp probe.\u00a0 In Probe mode you can set how hot you want the probe to reach and the unit will switch to hold mode once the temp is reached.\u00a0 In this run I told the unit to cook at 226 until the probe reached 194 and then to hold at 140.\u00a0 Food can hold at 140 degrees safely forever (according to the FDA.)\u00a0 Eventually it will dry out, but bacteria cannot grow at 140.\u00a0 This is the key that allows you to put your meat in, set the unit, and walk away or go to sleep.\u00a0 No matter what you end up doing, when you come back it will be good to go.<\/p>\n

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Here is a closeup of the\u00a0fire pot.\u00a0 Wood from the hopper is ground through an auger that is controlled by the computer.\u00a0 If the unit detects the temp is too low in the smoker, it grinds more wood and feeds it through.\u00a0 This allows the smoker to only use the exact amount of wood as necessary and also keeps the temp within 5 degrees of the target.\u00a0 This is key if you want to guarantee your results in BBQing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Here is the probe inserted into the thickest part of one of the briskets.\u00a0 I set the unit to\u00a0cook at 226 until the probe reaches 194.<\/p>\n

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The briskets after being in over night.\u00a0 I put them in at 4pm Saturday and this was taken around noon on Sunday.\u00a0 The probe was at 192 degrees when I removed them to sauce and foil.<\/p>\n

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Here is one of the briskets removed and with my homemade sauce put on it.\u00a0 You can see the sky reflecting in the sauce since I do this outdoors.\u00a0 After saucing the brisket, I\u00a0cover it with foil, and put back in the smoker for a few hours.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t like wet BBQ you can always skip this step.\u00a0 Sometimes I cook without a sauce, other times I do, it\u2019s really just a matter of personal preference.<\/p>\n

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Here are the briskets after being sauced and wrapped.\u00a0 I put them back in and closed the door for a few hours.\u00a0 No probe is necessary as I\u2019m steaming the meat at this point.<\/p>\n

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And finally, one of the briskets with the point removed and sliced.\u00a0 It was VERY tasty. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Todd Barron @ FoodieCuisine.com A couple of years ago I received a nice bonus and ordered a Cookshack FEC-100 BBQ Smokerwith some of the proceeds.\u00a0 My wife was nice enough to let me do this and we (yes, we) have never regretted the choice.\u00a0 The Cookshack FEC-100 is a commercial meat smoker that is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,5,6],"tags":[757,7,242,30,29,8,33,371,370,9],"class_list":["post-86","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bbq","category-general","category-tips-and-tricks","tag-bbq","tag-brisket","tag-cookshack","tag-eddy","tag-fast","tag-fec-100","tag-grill","tag-meat","tag-smoked","tag-smoker"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1037,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions\/1037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}