I'm in paint (& general sales too) at work.... * We're a BIG Weber dealer, & it's SO fun helping people with stuff for BBQ-ing! * We've also got that Vault, & a couple "Egg"-style smokers. Not nearly as popular vs. a few years ago here tho'. * Just helped a young man with the linked Weber smoker. He bought some Traeger smoking pellets, regular charcoal, & a bag of Cowboy Hickory wood-lump charcoal. * It's a nice, easily portable smoker, and does a good job. * The Traeger smoking-grills are getting increasingly popular here, and we stock most of them. Most have to be plugged-in to run the Thermometer/auto-augering-system for the many flavored pellets available. * The smaller ones are portable tho'! * Near the Traeger area, we've got EIGHT full pallets of their wood-pellets!! * Check out Traegergrills.com * There are some RABID fans of these Traegers 'round here! Faron PS....Someday I'll have to get one of the Weber Summit-series grills! From $1800~$2400....Uffda! We have sold a couple of the "Weber-island" Summit Grill-Center setups this year....$5,000+ for all the S/S side-cabinetry, etc.!! Here is a link that might be useful: Weber smoker...

This is the best "recipe" I have ever had for burgers, but I quite often will just wing it and toss in Worcestershire, ketchup, Montreal seasoning (they make one specifically for Hamburgers too) or whatever. Hamburgers Copyright, Ina Garten, All rights reserved Recipe Summary Prep Time: 20 minutes Cook Time: 10 minutes Yield: 10 to 12 hamburgers 2 pounds ground chuck 1 pound ground sirloin 3 tablespoons steak sauce (recommended: Crosse & Blackwell) 6 extra-large egg yolks 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt 3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter 12 hamburger buns Carefully mix the meats, steak sauce, egg yolks, salt, and pepper with the tines of a fork, but do not mash it. Lightly form each hamburger and lightly press into a patty shape. Make an indentation and put a thin slice of butter inside each hamburger, making sure the butter is entirely encased in the meat. Heat a grill, broiler, or saute pan and cook the hamburgers for 3 to 5 minutes on each side until almost done. Remove to a plate and cover with aluminum foil. Allow the hamburgers to rest for 5 minutes and serve immediately on buns.

"I can’t understand why people are so emotional about sous vide. You seem emotional about it, too, no? :) " Possible. I try not to. Because there is no mystery and no excitement to the science of temperature control. It’s not a new invention, and it is just plain cooking with control heating. Very boring stuff. Funny it can get people very upset that I cook meat with electronic temperature control instead of poking with my fingers. Take a look below a PM I got recently in another cooking forum from a chef: [““You sir, are a belittling, know it all, think your better than everybody else, piece of trash. ------- You are ignorant, arrogant, and aren't worth a peas weight in food knowledge. Your a foodie hipster.-------Congratulations on your little home cooking competition wins. Your dishes look atrocious and wouldn't even be found and on a 1M star menu. Your technique and style bogus and outrageous.------- Get lost on your other forum where immersion circulators and SV are all buzz. Hippie. Good day sir.”] “I think any negative emotions are in part a reaction to the seeming fanatacism of some. “ Frankly, I don’t know which side is more fanatic. Each time all I said my dinner was cooked sous vide, a ton of people will immediately blame me for taking over the cooking world. “You're right, meat isn't smart, on the inside it does not know what the external heat source is. BUT, meat reacts differently to heat over time, hence so much discussion about cooking times. So while technically it may be true that you cannot overcook a steak in a SV bath, I'm here to say that in my experience a naturally "good" steak starts to go south with times stretching past what is needed to bring the core to temp.” And you are not wrong in your statement above. But why would anyone cook a steak longer than necessary? SV does not mean long cooking. It means by controlling precise temperature, if the kind of meat requires longer cooking time, you will not be over cooking it in the SV method. “An aside, the notion of saving money because the steak retains more water doesn't fly with me. Water is cheap. I don't think you can value the water loss at $10/lb or $20/lb or whatever. You're not going to be more full because you ingested a tablespoon or two of water. The question really becomes whether the water retention is beneficial to the final cooked product.” I am very confused. I hope you are not saying meat shrinkage is not a bad thing to meat texture. “In the case of our modern day pork chop, I'll say yes. In the case of a prime steak, I'm not sure. “ When you have a nice prime steak, SV will not take any longer than other cooking methods. But tell me do you have a way to cook London Broil into tender steak using any normal method? I am not talking about cutting the meat thinly across grain kind of tender, I am talking about tender as in butter tender. Well, that takes me 48 hours in the SV cooker. Do you have a way to cook brisket medium (cheap select grade, not prime) fork tender ? I just had pulled brisket tonight, fork tender. It took 72 hours. Good luck with you steaks. A billion people have enjoyed a billion steaks cooked the normal way. No doubt another billion for sure will be done the same way and enjoyed the same way. dcarch

Sounds like Elmer is pretty inflexible on his foodie words! :) I want good food when I eat, whether making it at home, someone else's home or out. When I go out and know something's good I don't find it inflexible to order that than be disappointed trying something new just for the sake of trying something new. I detest paying for something I didn't like, especially when the likable option was there. Trying different things is good. I would like to know if someone else has tried it and liked it or at least could describe it. Service staff seldom seem to eat the food there at anything more than a diner type place and their canned descriptions don't give much information. I don't like going to eat and leave hungry. I don't think it's asking too much to want good food at a reasonable price. I have a few favorite places. There really isn't a "good" buffet around here anymore but I liked to be able to try some things and if I didn't like it, could get something else. The only one around now is Golden Corral and they're mediocre at best. I know a great mom & pop place and their breakfasts are the best part of their menu. Oh, and "adventurous", well it can be at least adventurous if not downright dangerous to eat at some peoples' places! I'd rather eat at McDonalds than eat my sister-in-law's cooking.