Shirley Fab vs Southern Pride

[SGH]

Shirley wins.

Just my opinion but I feel that if you do your part that the Shirley offset will easily best the Southern Pride pit. As a proud Shirley owner, I can tell you that the Shirley is a tough act to follow in every way that matters. The Southern Pride will do a good job, but the Shirley will do a par excellent job. It shouldn't even be close. The Shirley will win.

 

[retired trucker]

My money ( "monopoly money :becky: ) is on which ever one the OP is hoping will win. It is hard when the cook is wanting one or the other to come out on top for whatever reason, not to "win". Just betting on the biased opinion of the cook. ( whether he thinks it is biased or not does not come into play ) Ether way he wins as he gets to eat the results.

Don't take me too serious, as I am just playing head games for fun!

Blessings,

Omar

 

[Bbq Bubba]

What does gas taste like?

 

[Smoke Dawg]

If you are looking for quantity and ease of cooking to pump our food for sale, probabaly the new school.

If you are cooking for quality and with love, old school

IMHO

 

[grill 'em all]

What does gas taste like?

charcoal drowned in lighter fluid

 

[va_connoisseur]

I've never cooked on a SP but plan on getting one for my BBQ trailer. I think the offset give the more traditional bbq look/feel and I love the one that I have, and the others I've owned.

But when doing my research and talking to people in the restaurant business, product consistency and ease of use are king, so the SP will probably win in those areas.

 

[DaveAlvarado]

charcoal drowned in lighter fluid

I think I see where you're mistaken there. LP doesn't leave that taste at all.

 

[Bbq Bubba]

charcoal drowned in lighter fluid

Thats not gas. Thats Myron Mixon's flavor profile. :mrgreen:

 

[longwayfromhome]

I would be interested to see the result if the SP was run with minimal gas. OK, use it to bring up to temp, but if the wood was kept topped up then there should be no need for gas after that. This would then leave the comparison as one between a trad stick burner and wood-fired unit with electronic temperature control.

It is my understanding that in many commercial situations, the SP would have the wood topped up, so during that time it would essentially be wood-fired probably 18 hours of the day and in many cases 24 hours, the gas only acting as 'insurance'.

This wood-on-wood comparo is the real challenge I think.

 

[HB-BBQ]

I am interested in the results too and being a stick burner guy I'd hope to see the Shirley take it.

However I like the set it and forget aspect of a SP especially for a commercial operation. if you are hiring employees to cook for you the SP's can be run by a monkey and still put out consistent Q all day. Would it be the same quality and flavor as a stick burner no but after a little trial and error a good cook can get pretty close with these gas/log units. One perk for us folks in areas with tough health departments is the NSF rating of the SP...YMMV :biggrin1:

 

[landarc]

Southern Prides, in the hands of an experienced cook, can turn out some fine enough BBQ. But, they aren't at all the same cookers, there is no real comparison to be made.

What HB-BBQ says is true in terms of Air Quality as well, a Southern Pride unit doesn't trigger any warnings at the Air and Water Quality Control Board. For California, a gas oven with a log rack is a whole lot easier to get passed. It still remains to be ruled on, whether wood burning pits in BBQ restaurants can burn on Spare the Air days out here.

 

[Happy Hapgood]

A very cool thread. All I can offer is that 50K BTU's on a gas burner aint no "Start Assist" and whatever taste you get from LP (and yes it does have one because of the orderant they use and it's not 100% pure) will be on the back of your tongue due to taste bud placement.

 

[SGH]

Waiting on the verdict.

 

[grill 'em all]

A very cool thread. All I can offer is that 50K BTU's on a gas burner aint no "Start Assist" and whatever taste you get from LP (and yes it does have one because of the orderant they use and it's not 100% pure) will be on the back of your tongue due to taste bud placement.

I'm with Toast..When that gas pops on,it's really ON! Sounds like my fish fryer which sounds like a jet engine.. Still wont't do side by side camparo til Thursday..While I'm just getting to know the SP,what really stands out is the efficiency of this thing..It's incredible..From stone cold to 275* in 15 min flat(with a little help from a weed burner the SF takes 30 min)..

It should be noted that while these two units offer roughly the same cooking capacity & are both mobile the price diff is off the scales!! For the same coin you could have 3 SF 30X80's vs 1 SP..

 

[SGH]

I'm with Toast..When that gas pops on,it's really ON! Sounds like my fish fryer which sounds like a jet engine.. Still wont't do side by side camparo til Thursday..While I'm just getting to know the SP,what really stands out is the efficiency of this thing..It's incredible..From stone cold to 275* in 15 min flat(with a little help from a weed burner the SF takes 30 min)..

It should be noted that while these two units offer roughly the same cooking capacity & are both mobile the price diff is off the scales!! For the same coin you could have 3 SF 30X80's vs 1 SP..

That is part of the reason that I own a Shirley. Price, customer service and quality. Kind of hard to beat my friend.

 

[Demosthenes9]

A very cool thread. All I can offer is that 50K BTU's on a gas burner aint no "Start Assist" and whatever taste you get from LP (and yes it does have one because of the orderant they use and it's not 100% pure) will be on the back of your tongue due to taste bud placement.

It's still gas assist. Kind of like someone using a weedburner to start the fire in their offset.

As for the "orderant", I've used propane smokers for years and I've never had a single person mention that they tasted anything on the back of their tongue like you speak of.



Perhaps marubozo might pop into this thread and offer his views/opinion. IIRC, he's running a SP300 and also has a SF to handle additional capacity needs at The Prized Pig.

 

[Pappy Q]

Apples to oranges. One is designed for high volume commercial settings while the other is designed for traditional BBQ. Like comparing a Dodge diesel truck to a Corvette.

 

[grill 'em all]

Apples to oranges. One is designed for high volume commercial settings while the other is designed for traditional BBQ. Like comparing a Dodge diesel truck to a Corvette.

After today's 16 hr session between these two awesome cookers I can't put it any plainer than Pappy Q..Gotta be back at it before sunrise..This seemed so much more fun on Pitmasters!! lol

 

[grill 'em all]

The verdict is in............
After a full 3 1/2 days between the 2 cookers I sum it up like this:

The SP 300 is easy to describe.
Simple to operate
Consistently even temps
Approaches the flavor of authentic old school BBQ

The Shirley Fab unit is not so easy to describe(for me)
Our SF has that certain something you just can't put your finger on.
Is it easy to operate? Kind of. Can someone be taught how to run it in 30 min?
HELL NO!! lol
The temps are up & down(within 60*)
It requires near constant attention..
With all that being said,

It turns out the best BBQ I've ever had..More importantly,our customers feel the same way..Comments like"best I've had" or "better than Dreamland" don't come easy.. But we get that type of feedback a lot at our place!

I wouldn't be where I am today without our Shirley!! Now we're still little fish in a big pool but so far we are heading in the right direction..

As our business grows it's inevitable that an auto cooker must be in future plans.. But as long as I'm the lone guy on the pit,this dude is rollin' with Shirley Fab!

 

[mytmouz]

2.5 hour drive... Must plan soon...