"Pretty Small?" You make it sound like one of those hibachi grills.

I can cook three 16lb turkeys splayed out (spatchcock) in my Kamado Joe "Big Joe", without double-decking the meat. The grate is a full 24" in diameter.

So long as I'm not cooking for the fire department, I'm good. I agree that there are "bigger" out there, Traegers look pretty nice for that.

I'm with Jim, I don't use the ceramic grill for low'n'slow. I have a smoker for that.

My son-in-law has 2 Green Eggs and they are definitely a force in the smoking and BBQ world. I have to use my propane BBQ, or my intheoven Dutch oven, due to my main floor is the 2nd floor wooden deck. No fires with wood. I would own a Green Egg if I cooked on the ground floor.

Pap

Thanks Jim,

Here is a similar one I just found on line ...

https://grillsinusa.wordpress.com/2012/08/15/mediterranean-tuscan-grill-reviews/

Thanks Tony. Looks like that could also be a handy portable camp grill.

Back on the smokers, I have been wanting to add a gas burner to the fire box on my big smoker but have not been able to find any good directions for how to do that. We have a lot of ingenuity on this forum so have any of you done this or know of a good, safe way to do it. I think it would be a good way to start the fire and/or help maintain a constant temperature.

First thought that comes to my mind is to start with an old turkey fryer base. If you were semi-local, I'd just give you mine.

When I got interested in the pellet smoker/grills, I went to Sportsman's Warehouse in Denver.
The staff lined up all the different brands and walked me through the pro's and con's of each.
I ended up with the Green Mountain Grill Camp Chef SmokePro DLX.
The pro's that won me over were:
1. Heavier Gauge Steel construction
2. Ash catcher on the bottom that can be emptied easily.
3. Chute on the pellet reservoir to dump unused pellets and reload with a different flavor.
There was one GMG model more advanced that included an app for the smart phone so you can monitor from inside the house.
It was another $100 and I decided I could check the temperature through the window.
With the veteran's discount and some coupons my wife had, I got the whole package for under $500 including a winter supply of pellets.
I have smoked ribs, turkeys, roasts, hams, vegetables, prime rib and they have all turned out great. Recipes are all over the internet along with videos showing the steps.

Thanks Rob. I thought about that but the way those are set up with the venting near the burner, it looked like it would be complicated. Actually, after my post, I remembered that a fried has one on his smoker that has worked fine for several years. I called him and it turns out he did it himself and it's very simple. I'm going by his house this weekend to check it out and take some pics. Assuming anyone is interested, if it works out I will post some pics and/or directions.

When I was at Louisiana Tech I got a double major in Forestry and Animal Science. One of my classes was "Meats". We had to grade the animal on the hoof, then butcher it, grade it again. After it aged for a week, we cut it up and graded again, then compared our grading from on the hoof to the cuts of meat. Then the professor would load the smoker with all of the cuts that weren't nice enough to be placed in the faculty store. Mostly shanks, head and flank. The smoker was primarily for hams and bacon, but the rough parts of beef and lamb were put in a basket in the smoker. The smoker had a high temp of 180 and had a hardwood sawdust vibrator onto a hotplate. This was before pellets. After 18-20 hours, we ate the parts. Every piece was delicious and many of my cowboy chums got converted to lamb shanks.

Some of them have longer "mixing tubes" between the gas orifice and the burner ring.

This here is how we do it in East Texas.

We make our own sauce and tweak it a little bit depending if we are smoking brisket, pork, turkey, or chicken.

Some around here use hickory or pecan wood. I use Red Oak exclusively.