Gravity Fed vsReverse Flow Water cooker?

jjdbike

Hey folks,

Hope all are well and ready to enjoy the weekend as spring is on it's way! I know I'm looking forward to a weekend cook & fellowship w/ friends.

I currently have a generic (a.k.a. pretty good fake) BGE. It's not big enough and has some downside as opposed to a dedicated smoker. While a big ole' thick walled offset stick burner w/ a large firebox is the gold standard for clean smoke flavor, I'm not looking for that level of hands on work while smoking. From what I've read, the offsets are superior because they use all wood, provide complete combustion, and provide significant airflow. All of which contribute to the deep, complex, clean wood smoke flavor, deep pink smoke ring, and crisp deep mahogany bark. Again, I'm not ready to commit the time to building and tending a fire over a 6, 8 or even 12 hour cook. 

I've not totally narrowed it down and am open to any and all suggestions. At this point I'm comparing the Backwood BBQ Chubby G2 (reverse flow water cooker) and the Old County BBQ insulated gravity fed charcoal smoker. I'm hoping for input from people who have experience with these. I'd like to hear reviews, pros & cons and any other useful information. Like I said, I'm also open to any other suggestions. 

Thanks in advance,
JD

WeberWho

I'm a fan a gravity feed smokers. I can't help much with water smokers. (Just not an option in winter up here in MN)

I'd stay away from the Old Country gravity fed smokers unless you inspect it from top to bottom before purchasing. They've been known for all kinds of fitment issues. The quality control isn't all that good. I'm not saying it's a bad smoker but you might want to double, triple check it before bringing one home. 

Money_Hillbilly

@jjdbike As you know I am a big gravity fed smoker fan.  If you are interested in going that direction I would suggest you stick with some well known brands such Stumps, Deep South, Assassin, etc.  I have a Rockin W which is exceptionally well built.  They are all expensive so do your homework. 

jjdbike

WeberWho said:

I'm a fan a gravity feed smokers. I can't help much with water smokers. (Just not an option in winter up here in MN)

I'd stay away from the Old Country gravity fed smokers unless you inspect it from top to bottom before purchasing. They've been known for all kinds of fitment issues. The quality control isn't all that good. I'm not saying it's a bad smoker but you might want to double, triple check it before bringing one home. 

Thanks Weber,
So you're saying it's so cold that water in a hot cooker would freeze?
Yes, now that you mention it, I have read some reviews about quality control issues w/ back woods. On the other hand, I've heard some BBQ comp peeps brag on how well they work. The thing that I never know is, are they sponsored by the company they're promoting.... Probably most of them are on some level.
JD

WeberWho

jjdbike said:

WeberWho said:

I'm a fan a gravity feed smokers. I can't help much with water smokers. (Just not an option in winter up here in MN)

I'd stay away from the Old Country gravity fed smokers unless you inspect it from top to bottom before purchasing. They've been known for all kinds of fitment issues. The quality control isn't all that good. I'm not saying it's a bad smoker but you might want to double, triple check it before bringing one home. 

Thanks Weber,
So you're saying it's so cold that water in a hot cooker would freeze?
Yes, now that you mention it, I have read some reviews about quality control issues w/ back woods. On the other hand, I've heard some BBQ comp peeps brag on how well they work. The thing that I never know is, are they sponsored by the company they're promoting.... Probably most of them are on some level.
JD

We shut down any exterior water lines due to the cold weather. You'll run the chance of pipes bursting otherwise. So it doesn't make sense to buy a water smoker for some of us depending on the location. There's a good five months where you're smoker wouldn't be usable unless you run a hose from inside your house which isn't ideal. 

lkapigian

Gravity Feed for sure, not a huge fan of anything reverse flow....most of the insulated cookers run high humidity so no water pan needed 

The Cen-Tex Smoker

I went deep on this a few years ago when looking for a new cooker. I was so close to getting a pitmaker vault, then decided on a gravity fed cabinet. Then I went a different direction altogether. The more I looked, the more I came to realize that the only thing I was gaining over a Kamado was space. You are still burning a choked down dirty charcoal fire with smoldering wood chunks for smoke. Same as a kamado. I have had some awesome food off of these styles of cookers- same as kamados, but don't expect some magic sweet blue smoke flavor profile out of these cookers. They run a dirty charcoal fire with smoldering wood just like your current cooker. The only way to get outside of that is to burn wood. Not smoldering wood chunks, but a fully ignited and oxygenated 100% wood fire.

Edit to add: If you do get an insulated cabinet smoker, gravity fed is the way to go. It is the closest you will get to running a clean fire.

jjdbike

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

I went deep on this a few years ago when looking for a new cooker. I was so close to getting a pitmaker vault, then decided on a gravity fed cabinet. Then I went a different direction altogether. The more I looked, the more I came to realize that the only thing I was gaining over a Kamado was space. You are still burning a choked down dirty charcoal fire with smoldering wood chunks for smoke. Same as a kamado. I have had some awesome food off of these styles of cookers- same as kamados, but don't expect some magic sweet blue smoke flavor profile out of these cookers. They run a dirty charcoal fire with smoldering wood just like your current cooker. The only way to get outside of that is to burn wood. Not smoldering wood chunks, but a fully ignited and oxygenated 100% wood fire.

Edit to add: If you do get an insulated cabinet smoker, gravity fed is the way to go. It is the closest you will get to running a clean fire.

I see your point.
So what did you wind up getting? An offset? A larger Kamado? 
JD

The Cen-Tex Smoker

jjdbike said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

I went deep on this a few years ago when looking for a new cooker. I was so close to getting a pitmaker vault, then decided on a gravity fed cabinet. Then I went a different direction altogether. The more I looked, the more I came to realize that the only thing I was gaining over a Kamado was space. You are still burning a choked down dirty charcoal fire with smoldering wood chunks for smoke. Same as a kamado. I have had some awesome food off of these styles of cookers- same as kamados, but don't expect some magic sweet blue smoke flavor profile out of these cookers. They run a dirty charcoal fire with smoldering wood just like your current cooker. The only way to get outside of that is to burn wood. Not smoldering wood chunks, but a fully ignited and oxygenated 100% wood fire.

Edit to add: If you do get an insulated cabinet smoker, gravity fed is the way to go. It is the closest you will get to running a clean fire.

I see your point.
So what did you wind up getting? An offset? A larger Kamado? 
JD

karuebcue (aka "the dishwasher"). Several people on here have them. It's not nearly as "set and forget" as a cabinet or kamado but it's a badass little wood burning smoker/oven.

It's not for everyone but it fit my needs: 100% fully ignited wood fire, small footprint, can cook multiple briskets/butts etc.

lkapigian

@The Cen-Tex Smoker is spot on, I did it for amount I can cook at 1 time , easily feed a few hundred out of my XL Stretch 

The Cen-Tex Smoker

lkapigian said:

@The Cen-Tex Smoker is spot on, I did it for amount I can cook at 1 time , easily feed a few hundred out of my XL Stretch 

I saw Scottie crank out 500lbs+ of food on his vault one night at Brisket Camp 1 and the food was awesome. If you want to crank out a lot of really good food and not have to manage temps (and sleep all night) , these things are invaluable. I just wanted to nerd out on clean smoke so I went this way.

WeberWho

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

I went deep on this a few years ago when looking for a new cooker. I was so close to getting a pitmaker vault, then decided on a gravity fed cabinet. Then I went a different direction altogether. The more I looked, the more I came to realize that the only thing I was gaining over a Kamado was space. You are still burning a choked down dirty charcoal fire with smoldering wood chunks for smoke. Same as a kamado. I have had some awesome food off of these styles of cookers- same as kamados, but don't expect some magic sweet blue smoke flavor profile out of these cookers. They run a dirty charcoal fire with smoldering wood just like your current cooker. The only way to get outside of that is to burn wood. Not smoldering wood chunks, but a fully ignited and oxygenated 100% wood fire.

Edit to add: If you do get an insulated cabinet smoker, gravity fed is the way to go. It is the closest you will get to running a clean fire.

The key is to run chunks under the fire grate with the gravity feed smokers where you can get the wood chunks to fully ignite giving it that clean smoke similar to an offset. I find the smoke profile on my gravity feed smoker is close to what I get on my Shirley.  

I 100% agree with you about some of those other cabinet smokers where you add chunks to the charcoal where it will sit and smolder.

I'm not sure if you can get any closer to a stick burner flavor and ease with a gravity feed smoker. 

The Cen-Tex Smoker

WeberWho said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

I went deep on this a few years ago when looking for a new cooker. I was so close to getting a pitmaker vault, then decided on a gravity fed cabinet. Then I went a different direction altogether. The more I looked, the more I came to realize that the only thing I was gaining over a Kamado was space. You are still burning a choked down dirty charcoal fire with smoldering wood chunks for smoke. Same as a kamado. I have had some awesome food off of these styles of cookers- same as kamados, but don't expect some magic sweet blue smoke flavor profile out of these cookers. They run a dirty charcoal fire with smoldering wood just like your current cooker. The only way to get outside of that is to burn wood. Not smoldering wood chunks, but a fully ignited and oxygenated 100% wood fire.

Edit to add: If you do get an insulated cabinet smoker, gravity fed is the way to go. It is the closest you will get to running a clean fire.

The key is to run chunks under the fire grate with the gravity feed smokers where you can get the wood chunks to fully ignite giving it that clean smoke similar to an offset. I find the smoke profile on my gravity feed smoker is close to what I get on my Shirley.  

I 100% agree with you about some of those other cabinet smokers where you add chunks to the charcoal where it will sit and smolder.

I'm not sure if you can get any closer to a stick burner flavor and ease with a gravity feed smoker. 

I haven't looked in a while but I didn't see that setup. Sounds better. So you run charcoal in the chute and burning chunks under the fire grate? 

WeberWho

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

WeberWho said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

I went deep on this a few years ago when looking for a new cooker. I was so close to getting a pitmaker vault, then decided on a gravity fed cabinet. Then I went a different direction altogether. The more I looked, the more I came to realize that the only thing I was gaining over a Kamado was space. You are still burning a choked down dirty charcoal fire with smoldering wood chunks for smoke. Same as a kamado. I have had some awesome food off of these styles of cookers- same as kamados, but don't expect some magic sweet blue smoke flavor profile out of these cookers. They run a dirty charcoal fire with smoldering wood just like your current cooker. The only way to get outside of that is to burn wood. Not smoldering wood chunks, but a fully ignited and oxygenated 100% wood fire.

Edit to add: If you do get an insulated cabinet smoker, gravity fed is the way to go. It is the closest you will get to running a clean fire.

The key is to run chunks under the fire grate with the gravity feed smokers where you can get the wood chunks to fully ignite giving it that clean smoke similar to an offset. I find the smoke profile on my gravity feed smoker is close to what I get on my Shirley.  

I 100% agree with you about some of those other cabinet smokers where you add chunks to the charcoal where it will sit and smolder.

I'm not sure if you can get any closer to a stick burner flavor and ease with a gravity feed smoker. 

I haven't looked in a while but I didn't see that setup. Sounds better. So you run charcoal in the chute and burning chunks under the fire grate? 

Exactly. I place a couple fist size chunks below the fire grate and the embers will drop through the grate and fully ignite the chunks of wood. The charcoal in the chute paired with a fan pretty much just acts as your heat source. Majority of you smoke profile is from your fully ignited chunks of wood below the fire grate. I'll add wood chunks the first 2-3 hours of the cook. No chunks mixed in the charcoal where it would smolder and create dirty smoke. 

I was pretty much a nonbeliever when I first started doing some research of cabinet smokers and people would mention that they could produce similar results of a stick burner. I always thought it was a bunch of bullsheet. The more I looked into gravity feed smokers the more it made sense on the way they worked. They weren't necessary wrong. It's hard to beat for the ease of use and the smoke profile you can produce.

littlerascal56

The large gravity feed I built was copied from Stubbs designs.  The wood burned on a fire grate, and my fan took it thru the charcoal fire which cleaned the smoke.  Just a light blue smoke came out of the stack.  And the meat had a nice smoke profile, very close to an offset. Totally different than what came off my XL!  

One of the easiest smokers to cook on, and made great bbq.  Mine would run 18 hours on a 20# bag of Kingsford @250.

Money_Hillbilly

@weberwho I will disagree with you on adding chunks to the chute.  I have a really large gravity fed unit that operates with the fan running nearly constantly especially at 275 or so.  I get clean blue smoke pouring out of the stack.  I also have a KBQ so I feel like I understand the smoke world.  I have won a number of first places doing ribs in the KBQ and my briskets and butts in the gravity unit.  My game really changed when I added these two smokers.  We named the gravity unit big blue after the blue smoke emitting from the stack.

Money_Hillbilly

@WeberWho I forgot to mention the most important operating variable.  My unit came with a CyberQ controller.  On initial cooks I got creosote dripping out of the stack and pooling on top of the smoker.  The CyberQ operates using pulse signals with the fan cycling off and on at 100%.  I switched to a Flameboss 500 that operates as a variable speed fan.  After achieving operating temp it operates in a low mode nearly 100% of the time. It was a game changer with a constant plume of light blue smoke.

 When I use the egg with a Flameboss I have to keep the top vent nearly closed leading to a smoldering fire.  

WeberWho

Money_Hillbilly said:

@weberwho I will disagree with you on adding chunks to the chute.  I have a really large gravity fed unit that operates with the fan running nearly constantly especially at 275 or so.  I get clean blue smoke pouring out of the stack.  I also have a KBQ so I feel like I understand the smoke world.  I have won a number of first places doing ribs in the KBQ and my briskets and butts in the gravity unit.  My game really changed when I added these two smokers.  We named the gravity unit big blue after the blue smoke emitting from the stack.

How do you get a clean smoke with adding chunks to the charcoal? I'm not seeing how that's possible? I'm not saying you're wrong but curious on how it would be similar to the same smoke profile as an offset? (Always looking for something to learn) My KBQ and reverse flow smoker is much closer in smoke profile to my cabinet smoker as the wood can fully ignite compared to the BGE where the wood smolders and creates a heavier smoke. 

Are you saying you like the smoke profile more with the chunks in the lump or are you saying it's exactly the same smoke profile as an offset? This is where I might be getting confused....

Money_Hillbilly

@WeberWho I can produce smoked meats on the gravity unit with chunks in the chute with a smoke profile very close to a stick burner.  99% 0f folks can’t tell the difference.  Very few people can tell the difference among different smoking woods let alone smoker type.  

WeberWho

Money_Hillbilly said:

@WeberWho I can produce smoked meats on the gravity unit with chunks in the chute with a smoke profile very close to a stick burner.  99% 0f folks can’t tell the difference.  Very few people can tell the difference among different smoking woods let alone smoker type.  

@Money_Hillbilly

Most folks won't be able to tell the difference. I agree with that. I'm just not seeing how you can add wood chunks to lump and be comparable to a stick burner. Are you also adding chunks under the fire grate at the same time where you're picking up an offset smoke profile? You would think chunks that smolder would overpower or mask fully ignited chunks. With an offset it's a much lighter smoke profile. Whenever I've used my BGE, or when I had my Good One smoker, and Weber Smokey Mountain it would always be a much heavier smoke profile as the chunks smolder. I'm trying to figure out how or why a cabinet smoker would somehow change the smoke profile with chunks and lump mixed together. I'm all about trying new techniques but I'm also trying to understand how that would be possible. 

lkapigian

@WeberWho, it is convenient but isn’t going to smoke any different than putting chunks under the grate 

The Cen-Tex Smoker

I will throw this out there: cooking with 100% non-kiln dried wood (not chunks you buy in a store with charcoal for fuel) is way different than cooking with store bought chunks/charcoal. Period. Properly aged (not dried) firewood still has a ton of moisture in it. The flavonoids in wood are carried water/steam which in turn sticks to the meat. Charcoal has almost 0% water and store bought chunks have most of the flavor/water cooked out of them before they hit the shelves. There is just no way that you can run a charcoal fire and use store bought chunks and get the same flavors from using 100% wood. 

If you are telling me that running a charcoal fire and burning store-bought wood chunks underneath it produces offset quality smoke…I call BS. 

Now I do agree that most people would not notice so there is that. Is it worth the extra effort and expense if 95% of people couldn’t tell the difference? Probably not

lkapigian

^^^^This^^^

WeberWho

SGH

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

 Properly aged (not dried) 

Four words that speaks volumes 📚 

The Cen-Tex Smoker

WeberWho said:

I get that

The Cen-Tex Smoker

SGH said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

 Properly aged (not dried) 

Four words that speaks volumes 📚 

I am still in awe of the spread you threw down off the Vault at Brisket Camp 1 .

Money_Hillbilly

@WeberWho I do not use store bought chunks, they are kiln dried to prevent mildew in the bag.  I age my own wood and shoot for a 20-30% moisture level.  The flame boss running at lower fan levels keeps a continuous low flow of air.