Marlene

What was the outside temperature when you were able to hold 140*F? 220*F for 12 hours is a piece of cake in the WSM, lower is more difficult -- I just duct the smoke from the WSM to my grill when I want a colder smoking temp. ← It was last sat, so it was 73F more or less. We held it there for a couple of hours. This was before we put the butt on and I wasn't smoking anything, I was just trying to see how low we could get it. I can't get any lower than 220 in the WSM, but could easily do the ribs at 200 with no problems in the Vermont.

it looks like this although ours wasn't that expensive. Not sure why its not on their website. It seems to appear and disappear randomly on there. As to the tank. So far we've done three rounds of ribs at 6 hours each, and a butt at 16 hours last weekend, and we haven't had to change the tank yet. My guess is that we'll have to change it next time we smoke. We moved our smoker up to the cottage and have another one on order for our house. It's a bit heavy to cart back and forth. We've experimented with temp as so far I've been able to get it as low as 140 and holding without ice. I don't know what cold smoking temps are since I haven't yet done any cold smoking, but I figured that was a good test. we've been able to hold the temp easily at 220 for the ribs and the butt.

Dave, the Vermont castings smoker has 5 racks and each rack will hold two racks of ribs so we can smoke several rib racks at a time. I have also found it to be more precise and easier to use than the WSM that we have. I don't know what the cost of electricity is down there, but I'd rather run my smoker on propane for 6 hours or say 18 hours for a butt, than electricity, although I imagine it's a fairly low voltage for the smoker. We also have trouble finding pucks for the Bradley here, and Amazon doesn't ship to Canada as a lot of companies don't. We did a butt overnight on the Vermont this past weekend and were very pleased with it. Better than on the WSM. Not saying a Bradley's not a good option. Just pointing out that the Vermont is a decent option as well.

Bruce, I will do my best to get some pics up here in the next few days. Uploading to two sites is a little time consuming. I love that thermometer for two reasons. I can monitor the temp of the smoker and the butt at the same time, and I can do it from indoors. Important, when right now, blackflies are swarming at the cottage, and one goes outside to check on the smoker at their peril.

Bruce, it looks good! this is the remote thermometer I use for smoking. I've had mine for a couple of years now and it still works great. We also did a butt overnight on our new smoker which worked out really well.

Cali, this is the thread snowangel and I started for digesting Fine Cooking. That buttercream recipe was one of the first things I tried and had spectacular failure with several times. I recall that several other people had problems with it as well, as you said. Other than that, I don't think I"ve ever had a Fine Cooking recipe not work for me.

I hear you Susan! The water levels here are at an all time high. Part of our dock is still underwater. We arrived at the cottage tonight with a cooler full of food and butt ready to smoke tomorrow (well, it will go on tonight). The blackflies are out in full force which means even if it is nice tomorrow, we'll be staying indoors so as not to be swarmed! Our long weekend was last weekend, so the drive up tonight wasn't too bad at all.

I get my duck fat from Cumbrae's. I can't remember the exact price though. I'm trying to remember where I got goose fat last time in Toronto.

I love those! Unfortunately, yet again, that item is not available for shipping to Canada. It figures.

They do. I also have individual ones with removable bottoms like these, which are heavy gauge tin and they work fine too. I've never had sticking with them.

I actually have that pan and it works quite well. But I've never seen one with a removable bottom. I have a mini cheese cake pan with a removable bottom though.

The new Vermont Castings smoker I have uses wood chips and is good for cold smoking as well. We've had no trouble maintaining a really low temp on it, and it saves on having to buy pucks etc. It also runs on propane rather than electricity.

Bruce, we have often used the WSM for overnight smoking for pork butts. We usually start them right before we go to bed around 11 ish or so. It's never been a problem at all in holding temp overnight.

I agree with Dana. I've had this, and it's outstanding. There was a time when I thought eye of the round was a write off. Not with this method.

Paul, you should go look at one, but in case it helps, here are a few pictures of mine The controls are simple. No electronics here As I said, it fits a full size pie plate as well

Ah. Spring. We opened two weeks ago. Very quiet up there right now. This weekend, the first long weekend of the spring/summer will see everyone opening their cottages. We are going up tomorrow, to avoid traffic and such. We had 18 ft of snow at our cottage over the winter, and the weight of the snow bent the frame of our dock. I don't think we'll be putting our boats in this weekend. It is supposed to be a cool rainy weekend here. Susan, your suggestion of a braise is sounding really good right now.

Do you have the brick oven convection toaster oven or just the standard Cuisinart conviction toaster oven? We find the brick oven one does an excellent job making toast, it takes a little longer than a conventional toaster by the browning is very even. ← Just the standard one; the one with the stone is much too expensive. Ray ← Yes it's expensive but I think in the long run it's well worth it. It looks just as well as a large oven with the exception of its capacity. I'm sure we save a lot by not having to heat up our large of an while cooking small items. ← Indeed. And because it comes with a removable stone, you can do small pizzas in it as well. It also fits a nine inch pie plate or cake pan too. If I put it in front to back, rather than sideways, this baker fits in it.

I don't agree that toaster ovens don't do anything well. I've done several things in my toaster oven when camping, including roasts, muffins, cakes, baked bries, and other things, and they all turned out quite well. I do prefer a toaster for toast, as I agree that toast should be soft inside, but the toaster oven works well when I need to make toast for more than two people at a time.

We have this, and we love it for making toast and other things.

Frittatas. Eggs and whatever other few ingredients you want to throw in.

I'll vouch for these, except I do them with pecans as well. These are highly highly addictive. I'd also second homemade potato chips drizzled with truffle oil and dusted with parmesan.

No browning of the meat first then? How do you get the complex flavours that come from the fond if you're cooking from frozen? I always cook those turkey breasts from frozen. I seem to recall it says cook from frozen on the package. I've never cooked a beef roast from frozen. I may have to give this a try.

Italian Bread from BBA

Well, I had the repair guy out on this issue while it was still under warranty, but then my life kind of blew up with a serious illness and some other things, and I just didn't have time to pursue it. I didn't know until just recently that the CO was so high--my husband and father-in-law were telling me it was normal to have a gas smell, even though I KNEW that this was way too much. Then by the time I was able to pursue it, it was out of warranty. Would I still be able to make a warranty claim? Complicating the issue is that I live in a small town with *one* appliance repair guy, and it turns out that he and the dealer I bought the range from are not speaking to one another. Like, they literally refuse to communicate. It's incredibly frustrating. Only once in my life have I shouted at a service person, and it was to the appliance repair guy's wife when she refused to make a necessary phone call to the dealer. ← Try calling GE directly and explain the issues, including the two people who refuse to talk to each other. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't let a defective range be out there like that.

Will we be seeing a review of it after you've broken it in? ← Possibly. It's going to make the trek to the cottage in the next few weeks, so once I've done a couple of pork shoulders on it, I'll know better. We did three racks of ribs last weekend and they came out wonderfully.