The Battle Continues

"Recently at the HolySmoke Backyard BBQ contest the ILBBQS had a battle of the bullet smokers. The Weber Smokey Mountain (WSM) competed against the ProQ Excel 20 in the battle. The cookers were compared side by side and each cooker was used to cook chicken wings and fatties.

I had the privilege of cooking on both these cookers. I am not experienced with this type of smoker; the closest I have used to either of these is a modified Brinkmann Bullet Smoker (ECB). I cooked 4 pork butts on each cooker. Both cookers were loaded with Royal Oak lump charcoal some cherry chunks were used for smoke wood. I lit each cooker using 1/3 of a chimney of briquettes using the Minion Method. I started out with hot tap water in both water pans. Both cookers came up to 200 ̊ quickly. I put the meat in the cookers and after some thermometer issues I realized the WSM was at 275 ̊, so I closed the vent that was in the wind and closed one of the other vents down halfway. The ProQ had a hard time getting above 200 ̊ after loading the meat, so I stirred the coals and tossed in a few more handfuls of lump. After making the adjustments to the WSM it settled in at 225 ̊. After stirring the coals and adding charcoal the ProQ came up to 230 ̊with all vents open all the way. Both cookers were stable. The WSM temperature hardly varied thru out the day. Several hours into the cook I did have to close a second vent on the WSM leaving one fully open. At approximately 5 hours into the cook the ProQ’s water pan was nearly empty. I added water to both cookers at this time. The WSM temp remained constant thru the cook while the ProQ varied from 200 ̊ to 250 ̊. I had to add fuel to the ProQ twice during the cook. I added fuel to the WSM once. I expected the larger ProQ to use more fuel, but it did not seem have any more capacity for fuel than the WSM.

Once the butts hit between 160 ̊ and 170 ̊ internally I wrapped them in foil, this is the same method I use when cooking in my offset, stick burner. It was shortly after this I decided I need to increase the heat to get some of the butts done to work with my schedule. At this point the ProQ was still at 250 ̊ with all vents open. I opened a vent on the WSM to halfway; I now had one vent fully open and one vent half way open. The WSM climbed to and held 300 ̊ which was in the range I was looking for. I could not get the ProQ to above 250 ̊.

Both cookers worked well. It was easier to control the temperature with the WSM. The ProQ cooker is large for a bullet smoker, with the original legs the unit feel slightly unstable. ProQ has reportedly addressed this issue and is sending out replacement legs. Some of the sections on the ProQ didn’t fit together well. It was too difficult to get the body sections apart to place or remove meat from the bottom rack without disturbing the cooker. The sections were hard to separate even after the cooker had cooled off. I assembled the sections in a different order and the fit was improved. The access doors in the ProQ worked to added water and charcoal, but they are kind of small and couldn’t be opened without gloves. The WSM still appeared to be a better product. The WSM sections fit together well. The access door on the WSM could be removed without the use of gloves which was nice.

Overall both these cookers are nice and I enjoyed cooking on them. They both turned out good BBQ and were easy to operate."