Northwest NJ

[sctdg]

Hi I'm new to pellet grills. I'm 70 years young and have been BBQ'ing since I was 16 in the sixties on a little heard of grill which was a Weber propane kettle. Have had two genesis's through the years and got involved in low and slow over charcoal .I now have three Kamados and a Masterbuilt digital electric smoker . I cook outdoors all year regardless of weather . Today I received my Rec Tec Stampede and if today's quickie cook is any indication of what's to come ,this is one hell of a kick a$$ cooker. Construction is rock solid and what I experienced today cooking performance follows construction . Almost pulled trigger on Camp Chef .Based on grill and customer support today I am happy that what came off that truck this afternoon said Rec Tec on the box. One last thing . It took from on line order Saturday afternoon till today Thursday to get grill,for an order moving by truck that's pretty Damn good . Trucking company was someone I never heard of XPO was name .Extremely nice people and very good communication . A good experience all around . Thank you Rec Tec. And No I don't work work for Rec Tec,Just an old retired Vietnam Veteran (35th Scoutdog Platoon First Infantry division) who likes cooking outdoors.

 

[Mike]

@sctdg first and foremost, Thank you for your service!

Welcome to RecTecForum. It's a pleasure to have you here with us.

You mentioned you did a quick cook on your new Trailblazer, what did you end up cooking?

 

[Uncle Bob]

@sctdg I like your enthusiasm kid. The Stampede is a good device, I've enjoyed mine. Seems folks in our age cadre follow a similar path when playing the outdoor cooking game as I've got a kamado and did the electric smoker box too. Look forward to your tales of smoking glory, and don't forget the pictures.

 

[sctdg]

Thank you Mike and Uncle Bob. Mike ,the quick cook was chicken thighs @ 400 degrees,just a Habenaro lime rub and nothing else. Very nice results without my usual vacuum marinating procedure. I did a rack of St Louis ribs today. A 3-2-1 cook ,will try no wrap next time .Figure I would wrap them first time because I was not familiar with cooker and did not know if they would get dry at 225 .Was raining intermittently all day and it made me feel kind of guilty that the cook was so easy. What has stopped me from buying a pellet grill through the years was my thinking that you can't use them in the rain. Funny thing is first real cook on it and it was raining,performed great and ribs were the same. I just took the challenge part of cooking outdoors away. LOL. Uncle Bob ,my electric cooker is mainly used for cold smokes and making bacon because of it's ease of temperature control . I use a cold smoke attachment and a section of dryer vent hose to further isolate it from smoke box for keeping things cool for things like cheese. When using electric it's nice to be able to be able to start smoking bacon at 150 and slowly increase temp as cook goes on ,hard to do that with charcoal. Would be nice to use Stampede for bacon but I don't think it will go down to 150.
Thank you guys for the welcome. Look foward to more chats.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Good stuff there, I haven't done the smoked cheese thing yet. You're correct on the temp, the RT shows 170 indicated as the lowest temp.