Been seeing videos of people doing these for a while, Saw manicotti tubes and remembered I wanted to try them.

I only sauced 4, they are better with the sauce on them to me and the GF. I need to add more or different flavors to the filling. I just used half pound each of Uncle Charlie's Hot Italian and Uncle Charlie's Sweet Italian sausage with some pizza cheese blend from Gordons. They weren't as bad to fill as I thought they would be.

Maybe some cooked onions and peppers added in to the mix next time.

Feel free to add any suggestions.

Manicoti shells (I used 9 for the filling I had)
0.5 pound sweet sausage
0.5 pound hot sausage
handful of pizza blend cheese.
regular sliced bacon for wrapping
dusted with put BBQ seasoning

Mix the filling well and pack it into the tubes, you may hear them crack but if you are careful it works out well. I stuff from one side probably 3/4 or more full then finished off the other end. Wrapped with a slice of regular sliced bacon. I put them in the fridge over night to help soften the shells some, dusted with some seasoning and had the GMG DC set at 245 (it runs hotter, not sure how much though). Used the Hamers pellets I usually use, and did them for about 2 hours, these would have probably been done in 1.5 when I checked internal temp they were 170-185° I put a little sauce on a few of them and left them go while I got my pork steaks ready.

Edited to add don't look to close at the dirty smoker drip pan. I did wash the racks before I started. They were pretty bad, and I did a quick scrape of the tray but those 2 piece drip trays at not easy to scrape.

I've seen a video or two listed as available but ignored them.  Yours look inviting.  I may follow your lead.

I am going to try them

Neat idea, going to do them as well

do you think they would be good with some jalapeno cream cheese in them

Maybe some jalapeno and ricotta.

I was thinking of this stuff.  I bought a tub last week and trying to figure out what to use it in.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Philadelphia-Spicy-Jalapeno-Cream-Cheese-Spread-7-5-oz-Tub/35656621

I had thought about cream cheese in with the meat. I think if just using cream cheese one would need to wrap the ends to keep it from melting out.

 Some good suggestions so far.

I was sitting here tonight thinking about filling them with cheese steak filling or some thick buffalo chicken dip.

Also thinking the little plastic nesco jerky gun with the round end would work well to fill them.

If others try them I hope they post what they put in them..

maybe you could plug each end of the shell with a piece of sausage

    Perception is misleading. I was thinking 12 Gauge when I read the title.

 

I may try this for the 4th of July.  Where did you get the shells?

I may try this for the 4th of July.  Where did you get the shells?

Not the brand I used, but this is what they are. The brand I bought had 14 in the box.

After cooking on the pit, I wonder if you could put in a tray with sauce that also had onions and maybe peppers and let them simmer for a while and then serve with the sauce.

Those look great, nicely done.

EDIT:  Probably could use a Sausage Stuffer (if you have one) to fill them.
Or maybe one of those Cake Decorator bags would work for stuffing if the end was open enough.

but those 2 piece drip trays at not easy to scrape.

I replaced mine with their one piece SS drip pan.