Well I FINALLY was able to take the time to do a smoke on the Summit yesterday. It was a busy day with the holidays however I had to try out the smoke mode on this bad boy. My intention was to keep it simple stupid and go as bare-bones and with as little hands on a possible. At the end of the evening I was shocked by how easy this thing is to smoke on. One thing that I will have to learn is how LITTLE charcoal to use; not how much to use. More on that later. So I figured a max six hour cook time for the ribs so I added six scoops from the included charcoal bowl. Turned on the gas-assist for 7 minutes per instructions. Turned off the gas assist. Within 10 minutes I was at 225. I was really shocked how fast it came to temp. Slid the intake to "smoke-mode" threw on some chunks of pecan, added the baffle plate and choked down the exhaust. I was really worried that I would overshoot the temp since it came to temp so fast however it didn't...at all. Ok maybe 230 but that doesn't count. I walked inside, grabbed the spare ribs and had the meat on and going within 20 minutes of scooping charcoal! So I waited and watched the Maverick....no spikes, no dips, so much so I walked outside to make sure the Maverick's transmitter was still working. Six hours later, with no charcoal or wood to add, I walked outside and pulled the rack. I did not wrap like I usually do since I wanted to see how well it performed hands off. I could not have been more impressed.....well that's actually not true. This morning I opened up the grill and looked under the baffle plate to see how much charcoal was left...WTF. This thing ran six hours on six scoops of KBB and it looked like 2/3 had yet to be burnt....I took a pic. So I actually was able to be more impressed. Then after condensing the leftover pile, it looked like I had closer to 3/4 of the charcoal left. So I had to take another pic. Now I honestly can't say how this compares to a smoke on a 22" or 26" kettle since I usually smoke
on a dedicated smoker, so the results might be just as good with them too but I must say for having only one grill that grills and smokes like this, without using a charcoal chimney, without a BBQ Guru, without adding charcoal and wood, I could not be happier. Now I'm still hesitant to say it would be worth 2k to someone who is skilled with a Performer and a WSM but when Weber went out there and tried to make a charcoal grill/smoker as convenient as a gas grill, they really hit the mark. The only thing that I am waiting on is to see if the Kamado Joe, Big Jotisserie will work on the Summit since the grill grates are interchangeable.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Topic: Random thoughts about Summit Charcoal Grill (Read 3116 times)