Hello, this is not necessarily a story of my success with the Smoke EZ, but more of a story of my experience with it. My name is Chris Sommerville and until a recent promotion, I was a CNC Laser Operator at General Devices Inc. in Indianapolis, Indiana. I operated the Mazak Super Turbo Laser when we were cutting your aluminum logos for the front of your Smokers. They gave me a bit of trouble, being one of the more intricate parts I’ve ever run myself on our lasers. Particularly the E’s in the logo & the smoke on the O, they had a tendency to flip up and interfere with the laser’s processing instead of falling through the cutting table. This meant they required a lot of attention when they were being run, so as to not crash the laser. I became interested in what the logos were being used for, so I had one of the members of our maintenance crew show me around. He told me a little about the Smokers and then showed me the Contraption they had fabricated to form the body of the Smokers.(pictured in BUDDY’S BLOG, in the Feb. 26th Post)
I was very impressed at seeing the ingenuity that came from my fellow employees, it made me very proud to be a part of this company. I have to thank you for helping us keep our jobs, in light of recent events things have started to look rather gloomy; so every little bit of business helps.

Thanks again, it was a pleasure taking part in the making of a fine American product.

Chris Sommerville
General Devices Inc.

I am writing to complain about your recipe’s you have printed. Last Friday with a brief respite in the weather, I tried out a few “tried and true” recipes. First I did a ham with YOUR RUB!. IT WAS A TWELVE-POUNDER THAT WAS SMOKED FOR 10 HOURS Afterwards, I pulled out the slicer for sandwich cuts. Then all of these NFC fans showed up and ate all my ham! It was not completely gone - the only thing left was the bone for the split pea soup. I also bought a eight pound pork shoulder. Marinated it over night and followed your recipe to the “T” - pre-cooked the night before and gave it nine hours on the Smoke E-Z. Set upright, it held 225 degrees all day (it did spike for less than an hour to 250 degrees - no-worry). It was all black and extemly tender in the inside. It was beautifully tasteful bark.

It was so tender that I had to use my hands to pull it off the Smoke E-Z and fingers to pull it off the bone for perfect pulled pork. I am disappointed that after makging 15 sandwiches I only had enough left to make about 4 more. I did a North Carolina presentation with the toasted buns, Famous Daves sweet N zesty BBQ sauce and topped with a country helping of Coleslaw. It was awesome!! So if you can tell that my complaint against you recipes and your company is it’s too damn good!! Kids 12 and under were grabing seconds.

Looking forward to being “disappointed” by all of your recipes!

After buying the Smoke-EZ conversion unit I had great success smoking pork loins, ribs, leg of lamb, Italian sausage, chicken and various vegetables, I even tried corn on the cob on the lower rack while smoking a pork loin on the top.  However my goal was to smoke a turkey for Thanksgiving.  I had a test turkey run the weekend before Thanksgiving with a 13lb fresh turkey.  I applied a turkey rub we had used in the past.  Following the warnings about allowing the turkey to remain within the “bad” temperature zone (40-140) for too long , I decided to bake the turkey for two hours at 225 and then smoked for about 7 hours to achieve the correct meat temperature.  That turkey turned out great but nothing spectacular.

So after I bought the frozen 19.8lb turkey (pre-basted Jennie-O young turkey) for the Thanksgiving feast, I read online about not using a turkey over 14lbs for smoking.  However after reading the recipes on the Smoke-EZ website I noticed that part of making a great pork shoulder is to truly pre-cook at a reasonable temperature for the meat.  Facing certain death, I completely thawed the turkey, brushed on a layer of molasses and garlic olive oil, used a slight variation on the basic rub on the Smoke-EZ site, stuck a beverage can half filled with triple sec and several whole cloves up the backend of the turkey, set the turkey upright (on the can), legs extended on a roasting grill in a roasting pan, covered with a piece of parchment paper (the rub eats aluminum foil sometimes), sealed with aluminum foil and let sit overnight.

The next morning I baked the turkey still covered and sealed in a 375 oven for 2 ½ hours.  Then I transferred the turkey using the grilling rack to my Smoke-EZ converted Weber grill.  The drippings from the pre-bake were used to make the gravy for the feast.

I then smoked at around 250 for only about 4 hours, basting every once in a while with olive oil.  After checking several times for correct meat temperature I removed the turkey, covered to retain heat and let rest for about 45 minutes

Needless to say the meat fell off the bones and the guest ate as much as is reasonable for a Thankgiving feast.  In addition I have never been able to remove so much turkey from a carcass so easily.  Next we boiled all of the remaining carcass for flavorable broth.