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Competition smoker

tduffy said:
There's a little bit of a difference between drilling some holes in a 55 gallon drum and making a few modifications versus building a stick burner. Did you build your UDS from scratch? fire baskets, grates and all?
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Well, I didn't weld the grates together. I also didn't mine the iron ore. I built the fire basket with expanded metal, a charcoal grate and stainless steel zip ties. I did not buy a kit, if that's what you are asking. Took less than a day - then I spent lots of time cooking on it nailing down the cooking process. But I agree - that's a bit different than building a reverse flow stick burner.
 
tduffy said:
Yea and more times than not the guys I see show up with home made pits are blowing dirty white smoke the whole time and end up at the bottom of the score sheet
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And those same guys would be blowing dirty white smoke with a Jambo as well. It's not the cooker, it's the cook
 
tduffy said:
It might be extremely boring but it is what wins. When you go take a class you'll see it first hand that it's probably less than than 6 things. Properly cooked meat wins. But hey, if the OP wants to spend all his time building a pit when it would be better spent practicing nailing the cook process on a pit you can buy, more power to them.
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So over the last few years I was cooking on a homemade offset modeled after a Jambo. She was as dirty as dirty could be. I did receive a few calls, but nothing to write home about. I switched to drums this year and took a Gateway class. That made the difference for me. However, I only use 2 Gateways and 1 UDS. Could I have taken Tuffy's class and spent more and possibly accomplished the same thing.
 
SuperQue said:
And those same guys would be blowing dirty white smoke with a Jambo as well. It's not the cooker, it's the cook
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When you build a pit that doesn't draft air properly I don't care how good of a cook you are. Yes I understand that many of these guys couldn't run a fire on a good pit either but the best cooks can't run a good fire in a poorly built pit either.
 
tduffy said:
When you build a pit that doesn't draft air properly I don't care how good of a cook you are. Yes I understand that many of these guys couldn't run a fire on a good pit either but the best cooks can't run a good fire in a poorly built pit either.
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tduffy do you guys win all the time? You post like you are a top 10 team in every category and win gc's around 50% of the time you go out. Just curious. We don't win much so just seems like you have seen it all.
 
Jason TQ said:
tduffy do you guys win all the time? You post like you are a top 10 team in every category and win gc's around 50% of the time you go out. Just curious. We don't win much so just seems like you have seen it all.
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Nope, sure don't but thanks for your observation. I however don't do too bad either. But what do I know? It appears all these guys who have competed less than I have are much smarter than me and have it all figured out.
 
tduffy said:
Nope, sure don't but thanks for your observation. I however don't do too bad either. But what do I know? It appears all these guys who have competed less than I have are much smarter than me and have it all figured out.
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Gotcha. I just see your posts more than about anyone in the comp section so just wondering as you must win a lot of gc's and categories.
 
Jason TQ said:
Gotcha. I just see your posts more than about anyone in the comp section so just wondering as you must win a lot of gc's and categories.
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I didn't realize that the amount one can post here was determined by how much one competed and the amount of GC's a person wins. But thats fine, I don't have to post here at all. Apparently none of my suggestions are helpful.

but for your info, my lack of competing and sucky stats are

Years Competing: 3
Total Contests: 14
Top 10 category calls: 29 of which 14 are Top 5
Category Wins: 5
Top 10 Overall Finishes: 11
Top 5 Overall Finishes: 5
Top 3 Finishes: 1
 
tduffy said:
I didn't realize that the amount one can post here was determined by how much one competed and the amount of GC's a person wins. But thats fine, I don't have to post here at all. Apparently none of my suggestions are helpful.

but for your info, my lack of competing and sucky stats are

Years Competing: 3
Total Contests: 14
Top 10 category calls: 29 of which 14 are Top 5
Category Wins: 5
Top 10 Overall Finishes: 11
Top 5 Overall Finishes: 5
Top 3 Finishes: 1
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You should put that in your signature on forums and business cards
 
Gentlemen, my apologies, I did not mean to stat a "heated" debate. But I can understand all the points made. Basically, if I build a poorly built pit, no matter how good of a cook I am, my food will still suck.......I understand that's why some PROs stick to cooking and not building.... I can understand that, ... I do have the ability to weld, I am using a proven design, I have run my dimensions several times through Feldons Calculator, and am building everything accordingly. I know how to cook meats on my UDS and my modified Brickman H2O smokers,. I have a freezer full of meat waiting for the offset smoker to be finished so I can practice my butt off and learn to use the smoker properly..
 
Biggest thing be sure.of. a clean.fire, some ideas work some don't, and practice a lot. You will be very proud of your foods. Watch your smoke patterns never try to trap smoke if food tastes bitter you need cleaner fire or larger exhaust..you can do it!
 
I see the cooking forums get the same type of arguments that other forums get ( cars, trucks, motorcycles, etc).

LOL

Same type of folks too. Lol
 
Yes, you can build your own pit and win with it. Lakeside Smokers up in New England won about a dozen GC's cooking on home built smokers. They even had a top 10 overall at The Jack and a 1st place there in ribs to boot! That must have been very satisfying, having that kind of success on a pit that you built yourself!
 
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