We stopped at a Yard Sale the other week, looked around and found a cabinet I wanted as long as it would fit where I wanted to put it. So I measured it and went home to find it should fit fine. So we went back to pick it up and I saw this old green Brinkman Gourmet charcoal smoker, a step up from the ECB I had started my smoking with a long time ago. I think I still may have it in one of the back sheds, that is if it made the trip when I moved 12 years ago. Any way I see that it had $10 on it, looked to be decent no water pan but the charcoal pan looked great and the racks as usual had rust on them. The guy gave it to me for $5 since I came back for the cabinet.
I always remember that old Brinkman making some great tasting chicken. I picked up some chicken thighs yesterday and cleaned up the racks with a good wire brush laid out some pieces of Qmatz I had laying there and was just going to put a foil pan in for the water pan. Then I remembered I had a dollar store SS mixing bowl that I figured was just about the right size, sure enough it fit well enough where it should. Fired up the charcoal chimney and got the chicken seasoned up with the KC Krytonite rub we mix up that she likes, dumped the coals and thought I may need more so finished off the bag of Kingsford that was open. Probably 1/3 more than I actually needed, but it had been open in the garage for years as I have not cooked over charcoal in a long time. Added some wet cherry chips and a chunk of oak and put it all together. The temp came up to about 300 in 25 minutes and just kind of stayed there, started to drop off a bit about 2 hours in but the chicken was 168 so we were good.
I had some left over Caesar salad and her some pasta salad to complete the meal. She was very skeptical about it, she is not used to or likes a strong smoke flavor. The first bite she looked at me and said this is really good, why doesn't the food off the other smokers taste this good, we used the same seasoning? I was surprised as she actually ate 2 of them. For me it was the taste I remember from many many years ago cooking chicken legs or even whole birds in mine, I really enjoyed the flavor and the juiciness.
I will be looking to make some mods to it now since she liked the food off of it. Maybe some thing to be able to adjust the air intake and exhaust. Maybe something I can add some casters to to make it move easier, and try to find some new cooking racks. That is how I am, buy it for 5 bucks and spend 50 more on it to make it into what I want. Maybe it is time to look into building a UDS.
Sorry about the first picture. I tied several times to get it to set the right way but it wasn't happening.
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Topic: Chinken thighs, not pellet cooked but was what I was looking for. (Read 401 times)