Hello from Virginia!

Seapup Sun Oct 11, 2009 7:46 pm

Yep, another Yank here on the other side of the big pond. Hello from Virginia! SHa_wave2

Been grilling for a few decades using various sizes of Weber grills from the WSJ to full-sized Weber LP grills with smoker boxes. Most of my smoking has been in an inexpensive charcoal-fired Brinkman. Even with modifications, the Brinkman was a pain to use (finicky heat control and definitely not versatile). Hello from Virginia! Undecided

Hence, I've been leaning more and more towards grilling and unfortunately, going out for real Q. I thought about purchasing a 22" WSM, but it just didn't have the versatility and ease of use I was looking for. Last winter, a friend of mine told me about ProQ, but I was a little skeptical about yet another bullet smoker from some company I'd never heard of. Last month, my friend personally turned me on to his ProQ Excel 20 and many of his awesome smoked masterpieces. I was sold! Hello from Virginia! Thumbup

FedEx showed up at my door yesterday with my very own Excel 20. Hello from Virginia! Pepper2

It was perfectly packed with each piece nestled in custom cut styrofoam. Everything was preassembled and all I had to do was attach the legs (came with the new style braced legs). Nothing appeared dented and everything appeared to fit well. I fired up a chimney full of coal and loaded it in the smoker without the water pan and with all vents open. Left it outside to break in and took a peek an hour later... no leaks, the temp read 350F and coals were only a 1/4 spent. I closed the bottom vents down to 1/4 open and waited for the smoker to stabilize to 225F, threw on a chunk of hickory and a chunk of mesquite and loaded some burgers on the 2nd rack. Smoked them for 20 minutes, removed 2 stackers and dropped the rack down the lowest position and gave the burgers a quick 1 minute char. YUM! Out of curiosity, I put the stacker rings back on, closed the bottom vents down to 1/3 open and 6 hours later the temp read 250F. Awesome temp stability! I'm ready to get back into smoking! Hello from Virginia! A18

Headed out to the store to pick up a pork butt and some birds for tomorrow... and some ABTs to munch on while the big stuff is smoking. This smoker is going to rock! Hello from Virginia! Food

The little munchkin thinking she has a new playtoy. Hello from Virginia! Grin

Not!

If I add the 3rd stacker ring, I could smoke a spatchc0cked neighborhood kid WHOLE! Hello from Virginia! Icon_twisted

Kudos to ProQ for FINALLY bringing affordable, versatile, quality smokers to the market for Q lovers like me and my family! Hello from Virginia! Bowdown

Looking forward to playing catch-up, reading all the posts on this forum while the neighborhood's stomachs growl smelling my ProQ smoke wafting through the air... Twisted Evil