EPISODE 003: THE PIT BARREL COOKER REVIEW

DRINK INFORMATION

Tom’s Drink – James Eadie bottling of the Glen Spey distillery, sherry cask finished 10 years

Link to James Eadie

 Ian’s Drink – Merlot

There is no link… Ian made it with his own two hands

TRANSCRIPT:

Ian Robertson
Hey, Tom, you would call both of us pretty much middle age, right?

Tom Kubiak
I think me maybe a little bit more than you.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, and I’m banking on that my genes aren’t gonna catch up with me. When I quote unquote, say middle age, but I figured..

Tom Kubiak
Yeah, that’s true. I know you’re parents.

Ian Robertson
So I figured, you know, what’s the best thing two middle aged white guys can do? A podcast!

Tom Kubiak
I can’t even think of a better answer than that.

Ian Robertson
Exactly. Now, if we were doing it in one of our mother’s basement, and about board games, it’d be even better.

Tom Kubiak
Well, we should do a board game episode at some point.

Ian Robertson
Oh, dude. Okay.

Tom Kubiak
You know, put that on the list.

Ian Robertson
I already have the best game. I’m going to leave it out here and let that simmer for future episode. Aisle of cats. I’ll just leave that out there for our listeners. All 38 of our listeners. Yeah.

Tom Kubiak
Aisle of cats. I will have to do some research. I’m writing this down as we speak. I thought you were gonna say Catan or, or Terraforming Mars or something like that, but Aisle of cats. Okay. Sounds good.

Ian Robertson
Too mainstream, yeah. Aisle of cats. So Drinking with Tom, What are you drinking tonight, Tom?

Tom Kubiak
Tonight? Okay, I am drinking. James Eadie bottling of the Glen Spey distillery, sherry cask finished 10 years. I got a new location to to try new bottlings and this little small liquor store up in Saratoga that I read about opening up there. It’s called First Fill Spirits and they have a very, very eclectic collection. Mostly Scotch, bourbon, American whiskey, some rum, but all odd things stuff you’re never gonna find in a liquor store. No, no, mass. No mass bottlings and it’s just really, really cool.

Ian Robertson
So tell us about what you’re drinking. I can’t repeat it now. Because it was very long name.

Tom Kubiak
Yeah, it’s a James Edie. So this is I had never seen this bottling before. So what some, some companies do is they, they buy casks from distilleries, and then they do the bottling side of it and put their label on it. And so this is from Glen Spey. So I went in the way I found out about this company is I saw an article about them in one of the local newspapers and how they This couple had had a love of whiskey, and they decided to open up a, a small liquor store in Saratoga, focusing on small bottlings, which is my love. And so I had marked it that it was during tax season, so I really don’t basically leave the house. And I said, after after we’re done with taxes, I’m gonna make a time to go up there. And so they send me emails and they do a like a Wednesday night tasting. And I’m gonna go to one of those one time. But anyway, one of their emails was if you want to get in our lottery for a small batch bourbon, bottling an exclusive route, very hard to get bottle, sign up for the lottery, we have a couple bottles, and we’ll sell it to whoever wins the lottery. And sure enough, I won. I never win these things nice, but I won it and when I showed up at the store to buy it, they told me that they had lots of entries, which surprised me, but anyway, and that gave me the opportunity to go there. So I picked a bottle that has a very caramel vanilla even maybe a little bit of stone fruit and it’s it’s very good.

Ian Robertson
Oh, very, nice.

Tom Kubiak
I’m enjoying it. What are you drinking? Okay, so that was my long story to ask you.

Ian Robertson
No, I love that. And it has a little bit of history. And well, let’s just say flavor to it in more ways than one. But that also leads me to say, just so everybody knows Tom is a tax preparer. He owns a tax business. So that’s why he’s busy in tax season. And when he says Saratoga, it’s Saratoga, New York, in case anybody is interested in that, because we’re both from upstate New York, but I’m, I’m a little bit more pedestrian than you. You’re always on these wild liquor adventures. You’re like, I got this bottle from a man who wrangled a snake in the jungle. And then afterwards, he poured his blood on the ground and made whiskey and then sold. I don’t know how you come up with these things. But anyways, I’m a little more but yeah, I’m a little more pedestrian. I am drinking a merlot tonight. Oh, okay. You’re not even drinking whiskey. No, but this is a merlot that I made and it’s still young. It’s two years old, but there’s something very primal and manly about taking grapes and crushing them and demanding that they become alcohol that you will consume. And then slowly staring at them for two years in your basement until you finally drink the blood of those grapes.

Tom Kubiak
Did you age it for two years?

Ian Robertson
Yeah, it’s a young one. Yeah.

Tom Kubiak
Oh, that’s young. Wow. Okay.

Ian Robertson
Yeah. So I love making wine. I have wines of all sorts of grape varieties. I started off with a merlot on this episode. Just to kind of introduce everybody into my I want to say hobby. It’s an obsession. I have about 900 bottles worth of wine that I’ve made in my basement.

Tom Kubiak
Wow I didn’t know you had that much.

Ian Robertson
Yeah I do it when I’m bored and and we only have like a bottle or two a week. So it collects really quick, but every time I see a new grape, I’m like, Ooh, I need to squish that.

Tom Kubiak
What’s the best? What’s the best wine you’ve made up until this point?

Ian Robertson
So if you have to say, I guess you have to qualify it. If you asked everybody else what the best wine was. It was a 2018 cab that I did.

Tom Kubiak
Okay.

Ian Robertson
I did not like that. And I’m going to explain why real quick. The average American palate, I’m not insulting the American palate is just what we’re used to. Yeah, if you have Italian wine, it’s very dry. And when I say dry, it has tannin. And if you were to just tannin in your mouth, it’d make your mouth pucker, okay, the average American we don’t like that I actually had to grow very accustomed to it. At first, I thought my wine was bad, but it wasn’t. So whenever I make a wine that doesn’t have a lot of tannin in it now, because I’ve made so much of it, I give it away because I don’t like it. And I had I had family and friends saying you should serve this in a restaurant. And you know, like asking for more. And I’m like, you can have all, it was like 12 gallons of it, I’m like you can have all 12 gallons for all I care, I would have to say the best that I’ve made so far is I did a blended merlot That was really good. And I’ve also done an apple wine that nobody else in the universe likes except me. Because it’s dry, and everybody wants it to taste like you know..

Tom Kubiak
Is it like cidery?

Ian Robertson
No, that’s no, it’s wine. Okay, so the difference between hard cider and wine is clarity and alcohol content. Okay, so cider, you want to have a little bit of sweetness in it. I want all sweetness gone out of my Apple wine.

Tom Kubiak
Super dry.

Ian Robertson
Super dry, and it tastes interesting. But anyways, what gives you the tannin taste is the grape skins. Okay, so like this merlot I soaked the grape skins in for two weeks to a month.

Tom Kubiak
And that increases the amount of tannin.

Ian Robertson
Yeah.

Tom Kubiak
And rather than pulling all the grape skins out right after you crush it.

Ian Robertson
Well, interestingly enough, you usually keep the grape skins into a certain extent or during the crushing process. If you do mechanical crushing, it releases the tannins, which is why when you buy pure grape juice, it still has that red look to it. But if you’re crushing by hand or a soft machine, if you pull the grape skins right out, it creates a sweet light wine. Zinfandel is a perfect example Zinfandel. I’m going off on a tangent because I love wine. But Zinfandel the the average Zinfandel you get is going to be very clear see through like pink almost. But that’s that’s not what it actually looks like if you’ve ever made a real Zinfandel. It’s a very deep red grape, you can’t see through it most of the time, if you’ve done it the right way. Ah, so how they get that light pink and that little bit of sweetness is they crush the grapes and they get them out as fast as they can.

Tom Kubiak
Okay, they don’t let the skin sit. Yep, interesting.

Ian Robertson
So I’m actually going to do that this fall. I’m going to this fall when I get my Zinfandel grapes. I’m going to make two batches. I’m going to make one with no skins in it. And I’m going to take those skins and dump it in the other bucket that already has..

Tom Kubiak
Oh to even supercharge the other way.

Ian Robertson
Yeah. And we’re gonna see how it comes up. It’s going to be like it’s going to be like black. It’s going to be so dark.

Tom Kubiak
Oh, interesting. Yeah. Interesting. You You’re the type of person that when you when you find something, you dive in 100% 110%.

Ian Robertson
Yeah it’s a personality type. I think you understand. My 900 bottles of wine that I’ve made. Sounds like the beginning of a song. It doesn’t really compare to your many bottles of liquor. But. No, it’s yeah, you’ve made yours. I’ve only bought mine. But I tell you what, I really wanted to talk about this subject because you and I are both novice smokers. And I’m not talking about the cigarette or cigar kind. Yeah, I’m talking about the animal protein kind. Yeah, and we both have a product called the pit barrel cooker.

Tom Kubiak
Before you go on that though. Think back to your your initial comment about us being middle aged. And I think the entrance into middle age is defined by a desire to smoke meat.

Ian Robertson
I make alcohol in my basement. I smoke me and I have a podcast.

Tom Kubiak
I am middle aged.

Ian Robertson
You and I are the stereotypical middle aged people.

Tom Kubiak
Yeah, that’s exactly true.

Ian Robertson
Do you have an earring?

Tom Kubiak
That’s my next endeavor.

Ian Robertson
All right, I have seen you wear dark socks and Birkenstocks though you were doing that well before you were middle aged.

Tom Kubiak
So funny.

Ian Robertson
But yeah, so there’s our entrance into middle agedness, was both of us started off on the pit barrel. And I think you and I both had different perceptions and different we both give the pit barrel a different rating. Yeah, so I want to talk about this from both sides. If you haven’t heard of the pit barrel cooker look it up. It’s basically a barrel it has an enamel on it, it’s not made for burning so you’re not gonna have open flame in it, it’s made for smoking first, so temperatures between 150 to 350 degrees Max 350 degrees. I believe that’s what it is. But Anything over that and I’ve read colloquially online, or anecdotally, rather, that it can start to bubble. But either way, it’s gained a lot of popularity because its simplicity. I actually watched his barbecue in competition on Netflix. And as we were watching it, they have an offset cooker, they have the big green egg. And in the background of every station is the pit barrel cooker. And it was very distinct because they make these little horseshoe handles on the sides and the top. Yep. And that’s how you hold it. And as soon as I saw it I’m like there’s my pit barrel.

Tom Kubiak
You’ve actually got two of them, right? You’ve got because they make a small one. Yeah. And then they make a larger one.

Ian Robertson
And they make an even larger one. So there’s actually three sizes.

Tom Kubiak
Oh, they make three. Oh, wow. Okay, I didn’t realize that.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, the big big one is commercial. Like, they’re like you do this for big gatherings if your catering. Okay, so I got the full size. Let’s call it residential one not commercial, get the full size and I got the junior. Okay, so you have the junior too right?

Tom Kubiak
I have the junior Yeah. Which actually was a beautiful anniversary gift from you and your family, which we loved so..

Ian Robertson
I gotta share the smoke man.

Tom Kubiak
That and I will say that that actually got me on the smoking path, like and it became a little bit of an obsession, as well as we’ll discuss.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, your obsession was very narrow, though. Like..

Tom Kubiak
That’s true.

Ian Robertson
How many ribs Do you think you cooked? Like that’s all you cooked for a year.

Tom Kubiak
That’s all I’m doing is ribs. Yep. And I’ve got ribs down to a pretty, pretty good science like, okay, and I’ve done literally, I’ve only done one thing other than ribs, which was some boneless chicken breasts. Okay. But you know, we’ll talk about that I imagine down the road. That’s all I’ve done.

Ian Robertson
And so I’ve done a lot of ribs. But I like to do my favorite thing is pulled pork. So I do a pork pork shoulder butt, so I’m pointing to my shoulder and nobody can see that. But that’s actually not where the shoulder is. It’s well anyways, that’s a whole other podcast.

Tom Kubiak
We’ll do a podcast on butchering which we neither of us know anything about.

Ian Robertson
Yeah no. So why not? Let’s do it. I know a couple butchers, we’ll have him on the show. But I like smoking anything that you can hang in there. So I like I did a couple of briskets, which is a whole crazy horrific story and then an awesome story, ribs, chickens, game hens, the whole nine yards. I smoked in there. So I love the pit barrel. I think you gave up the gun on the pit barrel, didn’t you?

Tom Kubiak
Well you know, I tried it a number of times. And I and I found myself getting into a rut with what was happening with it. So that I will say the first time maybe the first two times I did it, I loved it. Like it’s so easy to do. We can talk about the basics of it. It looks like a 55 gallon drum. But it’s, you know, smaller, you know, but it’s basically just a miniature 55 gallon drum with a top on it. And it has a basket in the bottom that you that you fill with charcoal and you light it and there’s an air vent on the side that can you know, move open to close. So you can modify the amount of air that that’s coming in. And basically the reduction of the airflow or the increasing of the airflow changes the temperature of the or how fast the briquettes, the charcoal is burning. And you put a couple of chunks of wood in the basket with the charcoal. And that’s about it. Once you close it, you know other than maybe monitoring your meat every so often. You don’t really have to do that much to it. And like I said the first couple times that I did it just I was really happy with the results. But what was your experience.

Ian Robertson
So I really liked it. And I still it’s still my favorite way to smoke meat. And the reason being is it holds the smoke in a lot better. It allows you to do things real manly type, like you’re just throwing lump charcoal, I like lump charcoal, I’d make it myself if I had the time. And then I usually, actually a plum tree fell down in my yard. So I chopped up pieces of that. And that that makes the meat taste awesome. So I throw some pieces in there. And I can regulate it just by moving the lid. If I want the temperature to go up, you crack the lid open if you want to go down, you close the lid opening that little vent on the side, the bottom side. So it is very easy. And I love that you can hang the meat. Yeah, one of the things that I don’t like about offset smokers is the grill gets hot. So one side of the meat tends to get cooked a little bit differently than the other side. So you end up on an offset cooker you set it on the grill. This you have a couple of hooks and you can hang it and it does have a grill so that you can take the bars out and put a grill in there. And I’ll do steaks on that I man I cooked I think I cooked ribs on it first a few times. Which I was so novice. I didn’t let the ribs get hot enough. You want them to round 190 to 200 degrees, depending on how you want them. I think I got him let let them get to like 170, 175 just because I didn’t know what I was doing. Okay. And then I read more and I was smoking like six times a week. Just my wife and daughter were thrilled with it. But anything I was smoking anything.

Tom Kubiak
And actually your daughter’s pretty good at it too.

Ian Robertson
So she makes steak that is out of this world.

Tom Kubiak
I’ve seen, I haven’t tried it but I’ve seen the pictures and I’m like wow, that’s pretty impressive.

Ian Robertson
And she gets, she’s young And she can get the whole thing ready and all lit up. She has a little bit of trouble with lighting the chimney. But so if that tells you, you know, a preteen young person can set the thing up and smoke something that tastes as good or better than any restaurant. So we actually had some smoked meat at a restaurant not long ago. And I’m not my hardest critic, and everybody in the restaurant is raving about this place. And I’m like, mine’s better. Yeah. Well, and my wife leans over to me, she goes, yours is better. And I’m like, Yeah.

Tom Kubiak
We went out to dinner with you.

Ian Robertson
Oh that was another place, yeah.

Tom Kubiak
To that barbecue place in Albany. And both of us were like, nah, this isn’t as good, you know.

Ian Robertson
So you can make some pretty awesome stuff. And that’s what I love about it. Some things I don’t like about it. Temperature, outside temperature, is more of an issue with that with the smoker with the pit barrel cooker than it is with like an offset or an electric one. Did you find that same thing?

Tom Kubiak
Yeah, definitely. In fact, I think that that’s when I started to get frustrated with it. So you know, my first initial times were in the beginning of the spring and may in June, I didn’t really have any problems. By the time, July and August came around, I could not control the temperature. And it was getting to the point where I wanted the long slow cook, which requires you to maintain a, you know, a relatively low temperature. And I just could not keep the temperature down no matter what, for a couple of times, I actually was spraying the outside of it with water, trying to reduce the temperature. And that that would help I have a really good set of, you know, thermapen thermometer, so you can have a remote sensor that tells you internal temperature, meat temperature, so I was really paying attention to, you know what was happening in it. And yeah, that’s when I started to get frustrated.

Ian Robertson
So why was the temperature going so high for you? If I remember, right, you were telling me it was getting over 300 degrees in your cooker?

Tom Kubiak
Yeah, and I think and that was even with the the vent. So on the pit barrel smoker the vent doesn’t close entirely. It never closes more than about 70%, at least the one that I have. So even closed you know, fully as far as it could be closed, you’re still getting airflow coming through it. And I even modified the amount of briquettes I was putting in when I got into the summer and the days were already 90 degrees and the sun was shining on it and it’s black. I think it just, it just pushed the temperature over higher than what I wanted it to be.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, I didn’t run into those same temperature issues. But I tend to have my setup a little bit in the shade. And so maybe that’s why I never ran into that issue. One thing I did note. And if you’re listening to this and thinking about getting the pit barrel cooker, I still smoke on it pretty much every week.

Tom Kubiak
I and I should say I’m not not recommending it, because for a novice, it’s actually the product is great. And if you can get the temperature control and like like you said, you can get it maybe in a location where there isn’t sun or or you’re doing it when it’s not really hot outside, I think you’ll be happy. I was really happy at the beginning.

Ian Robertson
Oh, yeah. And one thing I will say is I started off with the full size one, and I had a hard time getting it up to temperature. Oh, interesting. So the full size one doesn’t cook as well as the junior. So when I got you guys, the junior because you guys have your camper, and I’m like, Oh, this would fit maybe with our camper or something like that. I got one for myself, and it cooks way better, not only faster, that’s not faster by any means actually just more evenly. Okay, with a more regulated temperature. I think it’s just the smaller space. It’s like the basket to barrel ratio on the full size one isn’t right. Okay. And you’d have to get a lot of coals in there to get it up to temperature.

Tom Kubiak
How many? How many racks of ribs can you hang in the full one? The full size one.

Ian Robertson
In the full one? I’ve never maxed it out. But you can get easily six full racks of ribs.

Tom Kubiak
Okay. Yeah. So in the in the small one, two is pushing it. Yeah, like you couldn’t get a third you couldn’t get a third hanging rack in there. And if you got a really if you got a long one, you actually have to hang it from three or four ribs in order to not have the bottom of it hitting the coals.

Ian Robertson
Yep, so I actually curve it. Yeah. So I drape it so the curve part is up and then I hang that from two hooks. Yeah, and that actually helps collect some of the some of the smoke a little bit better. The problem with loading up your pit barrel too is it reduces the airflow.

Tom Kubiak
Okay, I could see that. Yeah.

Ian Robertson
So that affects your temperature. So if you have too many ribs, or too many of anything, so I made that mistake with chicken I loaded it up and there wasn’t enough airflow and I couldn’t keep the temperature going up. But I ran into my first temperature issue with the pit barrel when I did a brisket, got up at 4am..

Tom Kubiak
So much risk in briskets.

Ian Robertson
Oh my goodness. So I’ll try to keep this short. Got up at 4am got everything all prepped by 4:15 coals are going I’m putting the brisket on, things are going great, I run to Dunkin Donuts, I check on it. This is in November this past year. The wind was ripping whipping through so it wasn’t overly cold, but it would not allow my pit barrel to get above like 190. Yeah, and I was lighting coals and doing everything I could at one point I ran to the store to get some sort of sauce or something by the time I got back, it was dead because it was just..

Tom Kubiak
Oh, wow.

Ian Robertson
It needed a constant attention because the wind was affecting it. Yeah. And I had I had a turn so that the wind wasn’t going into the vent on the side. But that was my first real issue. And then I ran into another issue with that same time with what’s called the stall. So anybody who smokes meat, there’s a point in the meat and it actually happens because of what is called evaporative cooling. So if you’ve ever heard of an evaporative cooler, as water evaporates, it cools. That’s why you can find leaks with a thermal imaging camera because then water moisture is evaporating and creating a cooling effect. So the meat reaches a point where the moisture leaving the meat is at or greater than the rate of the meat being cooked. So my stall is usually hit me out of brisket at about 170, My ribs it hits me at like 145, 150 but it’s it’s evaporative cooling. So that’s at the point when you hit the stall. You got to wrap it Okay, so I wrapped the brisket.

Tom Kubiak
Are you using aluminum foil or butcher paper to wrap?

Ian Robertson
I just switched to butcher paper. Yeah, I just switched, aluminum foil tends to make things a little bit mushy. Yeah, but only to the point where the actual guy doing the smoking is going to notice, other people don’t but butcher paper is better.

Tom Kubiak
So I spent a lot of time reading back and forth on that and I’m I’m with butcher paper solid.

Ian Robertson
Yeah. And I think I do the same thing with my brisket that you do with your ribs. Maybe I use lard.

Tom Kubiak
Yep.

Ian Robertson
And I’ll use maybe you don’t do this but I really love the taste of pineapple on it so I’ll grind up a bunch of pineapple and pour that on with some lard.

Tom Kubiak
No I don’t believe pineapple should be warmed.

Ian Robertson
I don’t like fruit and stuff. But you put that on a brisket man, That’s happiness.

Tom Kubiak
No in fact I’ve thrown people out of my house for suggesting pineapple should go on pizza.

Ian Robertson
Okay, respect respect.

Tom Kubiak
No I do the same thing I use I use wagyu tallow as the drizzle for just before I wrap it for the ribs at least not for the brisket, no brisket, but I read an article at least so I’m hoping this is you know true or you’ll verify this you know the concept of something being moist is not actually in the case of meat. It’s not actually water it’s oil. So when you drizzle, you know you don’t have to use a lot of it. So in my case with ribs I’m only using a tablespoon or two and I let that smoke in the smoker and then I as I’m wrapping it I that’s what I drizzle on it just before I wrap it and man that made a huge difference but what would you do the same thing with the brisket.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, well I don’t I don’t use the wagyu tallow I use I use just straight you know, pork lard, which sounds weird, but what you just said is very correct. So there’s a misconception about moisture in meat, like most of the moisture when you’re smoking meat yeah evaporates very quickly in the process until you get that bark on the outside of the meat that holds it in. But really where the moisture comes from is rendered fat so turning that fat into a liquid. That’s why when you put like pulled pork in the fridge overnight afterwards you have like pork gelatin. Yeah, it’s because all of that rendered fat just turned back into fat. Yeah, you know, but after it’s been rendered once you pop it in the microwave and renders back again. That’s the beauty of smoking meat but that’s also the problem when you wrap it if you smoke it too long before you wrap it you put that lard on and stuff like that and all it does is seal the outside and your meat could be completely bone dry on the inside. Yeah, that’s where I ran in with the pit barrel is it wasn’t big enough for this brisket. So I couldn’t lay it on top because now the air was going there couldn’t move through to create a chimney effect.

Tom Kubiak
So I ended up how many pounds was your did you start off with your briskets.

Ian Robertson
I forget but it was the biggest one you could buy. I specifically told my wife Okay, good size. Yeah, find the biggest brisket that is known to man and she did like it was it..

Tom Kubiak
Which you know when when you have a brisket not turn out right. That’s a serious investment that you’ve thrown down the drain.

Ian Robertson
Oh, yeah. And anybody listening who’s there’s guys out there right now having a heart attack. You only allowed 14 to 16 hours to smoke that? Yes. I was hoping to get it done in 16 hours. It did. It wasn’t the best brisket in the world. But everybody who says he was good. I don’t know. They’re probably being polite. But there was a couple of limitations that I ran into with the pit barrel. Now when I did a smaller brisket I did a brisket tip so there’s two basically two cuts. There’s the big one little one when I’ve done the little one pit barrel it was some of the best brisket that I’ve had in my life.

Tom Kubiak
Really, nice.

Ian Robertson
Anything of anything a volume is just not going to work. You’re gonna have to use an offset cooker. Yeah, or sometimes and you actually switched from the pit barrel.

Tom Kubiak
I switched to a pellet smoker.

Ian Robertson
To a pellet smoker, and low rise jeans and a man bun right?

Tom Kubiak
I don’t have the man bun yet but I’m definitely heading that direction. So I am middle aged.

Ian Robertson
Anybody who anybody who uses a pellet smoker who’s listening in on this, don’t worry, there’s hope for you. We’ll work with you.

Tom Kubiak
You know, it’s funny, I spent a ton of time because, you know, the traditional smoker is the offset smoker like and yeah, I spent a ton of time I was I wasn’t afraid to spend a little bit of money. And I found some beautiful offset smokers, some of them, you know, they’re basically built to order, you know, you order it and, and their their six month lead times and whatnot. But I’m just not confident that I can keep the temperature consistency that I want. So with ribs, as far as I’m concerned, it’s holding the temperature stable at a certain amount for a long period of time. And that’s what I really wanted. And for, you know, in order to do that the pellet grill is just exactly what that’s for, like you tell it what temperature you want it to be, and it’ll keep it there.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, it’s precise.

Tom Kubiak
The problem with the pellet grill is they don’t produce enough smoke. So you don’t have the the traditional, you know, heavy smoke ring, I spent a ton of time researching and trying to figure out what the what the right thing to do was. And I ended up finding a pellet grill that had an additional smoke box. So you can add chunk wood to the smoke box and augment your smoke level. And that was like the perfect combination.

Ian Robertson
So I guess that is the beauty and the fallacy of the pit barrel. It’s inexact, and that’s what I like. That’s why I like making wine. That’s why I like woodworking like, over on my shelf over here. I had that plum tree that I’m actually smoking right now is I have a cutting board that I took an axe and I just split a log right out of the trunk. And I and I formed it into a serving charcuterie board with my own two hands. That’s what I love about the pit barrel. It’s it’s raw. It’s it’s elemental. It’s 100% Yeah, it’s a barrel. Yep. And it’s you in the smoke.

Tom Kubiak
But I’m an accountant. So..

Ian Robertson
And you like exact.

Tom Kubiak
And I like exact.

Ian Robertson
Which I’m not going to argue with you. So anybody listening? Tom’s ribs.. I have not had them yet. Because I don’t know why you haven’t invited me over for your ribs. Every time he’s sent me a picture. It looks like it’s out of a barbecue magazine.

Tom Kubiak
Yeah they’ve really I have I have spent I’ve made a lot of racks of ribs. And I’ve got it down to this meticulous science exactly what to do it every, every second, every minute, where to keep the temperature how often to spray it. You know, it’s I’ve got it down and man, they turn out good.

Ian Robertson
So one thing I’ll say is you can do the same thing with the pit barrel. You have to use your oven though. And here’s the here’s the sad part of it. Get the heavy smoke with the pit barrel. So when I do another brisket, get the heavy smoke with the pit barrel and then put it in the oven to finish it off for the last six hours or so.

Tom Kubiak
Okay, that’s a good idea.

Ian Robertson
So then in the oven, you get that exact temperature. Once it’s wrapped, it doesn’t matter. Yeah, it’s wrapped. It doesn’t matter. So yeah, I hate saying that too, because that takes away from the purity of it. But I don’t do that with anything else. I don’t do that with ribs. I don’t do that with my pork or anything. But with a brisket. The next time I’ll do it, I’m going to put it I’m going to finish it off in the oven. Yeah, that’s a good idea. But that’s basically what the pellet smoker does. It’s an oven with smoke. Exactly.

Tom Kubiak
Yep, that’s exactly what it is. Yeah, it’s got a dial on it, you dial the temperature you want. And you know if to a better or lesser degree, most of the the pellet grills now have Wi Fi connections and you know they have an app that you can control so even if you’re not right next to the grill, you can monitor the condition of it and the one that I got had some issues with that but they’ve since the company is I will say is really good to work with. They sent me a whole nother burner unit after the first one. I was having some problems with it. And then they also..

Ian Robertson
Do you want to say the brand?

Tom Kubiak
Sure, yeah, Camp Chef. Okay, Camp Chef is the one I ended up settling on. It’s a mid range. It’s not low, it’s not low end, but it’s also not like Trager or you know some of the other higher ends, which also make really good products. But the thing that the Camp Chef it’s called the camshaft wood wooden Pro comes in two sizes, I have the larger of the two. And the thing that really distinguishes it is that secondary wood box and because it’s got that secondary wood box, you can exaggerate the amount of smoke that is in in the chamber. So the pellets are basically keeping doing two things, keeping your temperature a certain range and providing your base smoke and then the drawer the wood drawer with trunk would exaggerates that and creates the extra level of smell.

Ian Robertson
So here’s my thing is there’s a place for your pellet smoker and there’s a place for the pit barrel. I’m going to say the pit barrel is a buy. I give it four and a half stars.

Tom Kubiak
I would give it four stars. Okay, it’s just my, the I just ran into some challenges with it because I was looking to do a specific thing. And I was having a hard time with that. But other than that, like, I’m not getting rid of it, I’m keeping it because I think it is a good. And also I will say that their customer support is really good. Okay. So they have a good website, they have great recipes, they have a lot of accessories that come along, you know that you can add to it, like additional hanging racks and things like that. So I and it gets rave people give it rave reviews, so I’m not going to doubt it.

Ian Robertson
So here’s my ultimate idea on the whole thing, though, if you’re a new smoker, if you’ve never smoked anything, and you’re like, man, that looks cool, and you want to just smoke for your family, it is by far probably the best thing to start off with, in my opinion, if you’re an experienced smoker, and you don’t have one, you should add it to your arsenal because it has it’s place.

Tom Kubiak
Agreed.

Ian Robertson
So I have found that when I’m cooking other things, I’m like, I wish I could start on the pit barrel and then do this, like Oh, that makes a lot of sense. So especially with the brisket, I would probably if I had a pellet smoker, you know, if I you know, if I ever give up on taking care of myself and masculinity, I’d have the pellet smoker. And then I’d probably start off in the pit barrel and then bring it to the pellet smoker to get the exact temperatures and also finish it off with a little bit of smoke and exact temperature. So I’m really beating up on the pellet smoker but I think it has its place in both for both types of smokers experience and novices.

Tom Kubiak
Agreed Yeah, and I will say that if if you don’t want competition level ribs the pitbull smokers fine.

Ian Robertson
All right, well, you are not getting any of my ribs.

Tom Kubiak
I’ve just been I just became obsessed with like perfecting the the barbecue ribs. So like to me after doing so many in the pit barrel and having them not not being able to control it. I think that I think that’s really what I’m more about. And the for a purist, you know, the pit barrel really is the better smoking method, purist barbecue person, it has to be able to manipulate what they’re doing, you know, they don’t want to use a computer control board to monitor their temperature. That’s why an offset smoker really is an art. So, you know, I think I think the pit barrel smoker is closer to the offset smoker than like the Camp Chef or a pellet grill or some of it which is cheating in the eyes of most people who are barbecue fiends.

Ian Robertson
And I’m only teasing because I’m jealous of how..

Tom Kubiak
Oh no, I totally get it.

Ian Robertson
How your ribs look when you send me pictures. But I tell you what, though, one of my favorite things to do is on a Sunday, smoke up some eat with my family have a glass of wine that me and my family together crush the grapes with our own hands. And and just enjoy some some manly smoked meats. Yeah, but Okay, so we’ll both give it I’ll give it 4.5 You give it four. I really think maybe you give him more like a 3.5 but I’m gonna stick with my 4.5.

Tom Kubiak
I think that’s fair.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, I think I definitely think it’s a buy. I definitely think you should have it in your arsenal. And like that cooking show I just mentioned one of the things that are out there is a pit barrel cooker in their primary. Yeah, you know, cookers. What’s the next smoker you’re gonna get? Maybe we can end our podcast on that. What’s the next one you’re gonna get?

Tom Kubiak
You know, if if I ever got to the point where I felt comfortable managing a fire, I would probably go to an offset smoker. Okay. But But again, then I’m going to go into the, you know, the range of where I have less control over what’s happening. And I like the control of it. So I don’t know, I think I’m, I think I’m happy where I am right now. Okay, what about you?

Ian Robertson
I like the wild, uncontrollableness. So my next thing, the big green egg.

Tom Kubiak
Oh, my brother has a big green egg. Yep.

Ian Robertson
So there’s a guy that I know. He smokes a brisket for 36 hours. And he doesn’t change up the coals. Yeah, so I’m intrigued. My interest is piqued.

Tom Kubiak
My wife and I just did this pizza Palooza class at King Arthur Flour over the a couple of weeks ago and one of the guys in the class, two day all intensive pizza making class and one of the guys in the class as they’re going around, they asked people you know, what do you what kind of oven Do you have? What kind of oven Do you have? And he had a big green egg and he’s making you know, artesian pizza on Big Green Egg. Or artisan pizza.

Ian Robertson
So now we’re gonna have to get a big green egg. I didn’t know it now did not know you could do pizza on there. Yeah, we’re gonna get a big green egg and then do a review of the Big Green Egg. Yeah, because if it lives up to the hype, if it lives up to the hype, it’s going to make some amazing stuff.

Tom Kubiak
Yeah, I agree.

Ian Robertson
Well, Tom, maybe we could end this podcast with the segment. Bad dad jokes. Do you have one for us? You didn’t have one for us last time.

Tom Kubiak
I forgot to look, I forgot to find a good bad dad joke.

Ian Robertson
Hey, no, no, no bad dad jokes don’t come from the internet. They come from in here, man, right inside your heart. Once you reach a certain age..

Tom Kubiak
But you have a child like I’m, I’m the I’m the uncle that gives the gifts that parents hate. That’s I’m not.

Ian Robertson
Okay, So we’re gonna disappoint all 38 of our fans with no bad dad joke.

Tom Kubiak
Next week I promise next week. I will. I will have a bad dad joke.

Ian Robertson
We’ll have to get you one from the next time, folks. All right. It better be a doubly good bad dad joke. Well, thank you everybody for listening into Drinking With Tom. We’re sorry for no dad joke. And hopefully this helps you with the pit barrel cooker. It’s a buy. Thank you, Tom.

Tom Kubiak
Thanks, Ian. Great to talk to you.

Ian Robertson
You too.

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