- My Forums
- Tiger Rant
- LSU Recruiting
- SEC Rant
- Saints Talk
- Pelicans Talk
- More Sports Board
- Fantasy Sports
- Golf Board
- Soccer Board
- O-T Lounge
- Tech Board
- Home/Garden Board
- Outdoor Board
- Health/Fitness Board
- Movie/TV Board
- Book Board
- Music Board
- Political Talk
- Money Talk
- Fark Board
- Gaming Board
- Travel Board
- Food/Drink Board
- Ticket Exchange
- TD Help Board
Customize My Forums- View All Forums
- Show Left Links
- Topic Sort Options
- Trending Topics
- Recent Topics
- Active Topics
Started By
Message
What, if any, benefits are there to a stick burner vs a ceramic smoker? QUESTION ADDED
Posted on 9/22/23 at 8:17 am
Posted on 9/22/23 at 8:17 am
We are empty nesters now and I want to get a bit more serious about my smoking game. I’ve always done a few cooks per year, but never enough to hone my recipes or be consistent. I have a BGE but see lots of people talking about stick burners. Is it purely a volume thing, or do stick burners put out a better product?
ADDED A QUESTION ABOUT OFFSET SMOKER ON 2ND PAGE
ADDED A QUESTION ABOUT OFFSET SMOKER ON 2ND PAGE
This post was edited on 9/27/23 at 2:15 pm
15
Posted on 9/22/23 at 8:25 am to auwaterfowler
I have both. The stick burner will make a better bark. The Kamado is easier to hold temp, but limited on grill space (unless you have the XL).
Posted on 9/22/23 at 8:33 am to auwaterfowler
Imo, stick burners put out better BBQ but are more laborious. Ceramics are more universal can can do just about anything. I have a ceramic, burner, and a pellet. If I had to choose just one it would be the ceramic because I can do everything, if I wanted easy it would be the pellet, and If I were trying to put out the best possible BBQ it would be the burner.
Posted on 9/22/23 at 8:37 am to auwaterfowler
I have been down this road, owned stick burners, ceramic and charcoal grills. Here's my take and my personal experience:
Offset and stick burner:
PRO: Produces a great product, good bark, moist and tender meats.
CON: No hot and fast cooking and searing. Takes a lot of TLC while cooking, adding add'l logs, figuring out "hot spots". Overnight cooks can be a chor. Not very versatile and a dedicated slow and low cooker.
Ceramic cooker:
PRO: Produce a great product, very moist, softer bark, ease of long cooks, and hot and fast cooks. Great versatility.
CON: Meats can have an oven like consistency, which is not bad but defeats the purpose of a low and slow cook over charcoal.
Charcoal Cooker (Weber and WSM, PK, etc):
PRO: Produce a great product, very moist, good bark, ease of long cooks, and hot and fast cooks. Great versatility.
CON: N/A
Short take: I loved my stick burner but the older I get the more I do not want to babysit a stick burner for long haul cooks. Ceramic was great, but there wasn't anything I cooked on it that I could not achieve on my Weber or WSM.
Happy grilling!
Offset and stick burner:
PRO: Produces a great product, good bark, moist and tender meats.
CON: No hot and fast cooking and searing. Takes a lot of TLC while cooking, adding add'l logs, figuring out "hot spots". Overnight cooks can be a chor. Not very versatile and a dedicated slow and low cooker.
Ceramic cooker:
PRO: Produce a great product, very moist, softer bark, ease of long cooks, and hot and fast cooks. Great versatility.
CON: Meats can have an oven like consistency, which is not bad but defeats the purpose of a low and slow cook over charcoal.
Charcoal Cooker (Weber and WSM, PK, etc):
PRO: Produce a great product, very moist, good bark, ease of long cooks, and hot and fast cooks. Great versatility.
CON: N/A
Short take: I loved my stick burner but the older I get the more I do not want to babysit a stick burner for long haul cooks. Ceramic was great, but there wasn't anything I cooked on it that I could not achieve on my Weber or WSM.
Happy grilling!
This post was edited on 9/22/23 at 8:39 am
Posted on 9/22/23 at 8:46 am to auwaterfowler
The stick burner is going to require more airflow to keep the temp up. I think they create a slightly better product but not enough to warrant buying something new.
Posted on 9/22/23 at 8:48 am to jmon
Is the bark issue on a ceramic a function of the high humidity in the pit? My XL BGE has very little evaporation of the liquid in the water pan. At 8 hours yesterday, it might have evaporated 8-10 ounces.
Posted on 9/22/23 at 8:52 am to auwaterfowler
Probably so. I stopped using a water pan on my BGE for this very reason.
As for a stick burner being more laborious, yes it can be. But if you get a high quality pit with few air leaks, it’s not that bad. If you get one of those stick burners from academy, expect to babysit it.
As for a stick burner being more laborious, yes it can be. But if you get a high quality pit with few air leaks, it’s not that bad. If you get one of those stick burners from academy, expect to babysit it.
Posted on 9/22/23 at 8:55 am to auwaterfowler
quote:
Is the bark issue on a ceramic a function of the high humidity in the pit?
Ceramic cookers are extremely efficient, as is an oven. Very tight seal, minimal to no leakage so loss of heat, and humidity, can create the oven like cooking. I owned a Primo Oval XL and miss it at times for the ease of cooking, but it did not survive my second round of cooker purging. My offset stick burner and Imperial Original Kamado were purged in the first round.
I have one more round to go, and will be selling off an old Weber Genesis Natural Gas grill, and old Aluminum Char Grill (PK style charcoal grill) and possibly a Weber Kettle. This would leave me with two Weber Kettle',s, a 18" WSM and a Wilmington Stainless Steel propane grill. There was a time when our kids were in college and we did a lot of tailgating for 8 years, and I used the hell out of all my cookers. But, that time has passed, unfortunately.
Posted on 9/22/23 at 9:09 am to TCO
quote:
Probably so. I stopped using a water pan on my BGE for this very reason.
I just took the butt off and the bark is definitely “soft”. I have to do another cook later today, so I’m going to try it without a water pan. I wonder if reducing humidity will help shorten my cook time. In my egg, it consistently takes about 19 hours to get a 9-10 lb butt to 198-200 degrees. For instance, I started yesterday at 1:30 PM at 215 for a couple of hours (I like my butts to be smoky flavored), then bumped it to 225 and left it alone. When I got up at 6 am, it was stalled at 172 so I bumped it to 250. It hit 198 at 8:50 am…..19 hours and 20 minutes total cook time. The flavor is great, but that’s a long damn time to spend cooking a butt.
Posted on 9/22/23 at 9:15 am to auwaterfowler
Try the whole cook at 250-260. Just my suggestion.
Posted on 9/22/23 at 10:54 am to auwaterfowler
No need for a water pan in a ceramic cooker. And as the other poster stated, run your butts in the 250°ish range.
ETA: TOP wide open if you can manage your temp that way.
ETA: TOP wide open if you can manage your temp that way.
This post was edited on 9/22/23 at 10:56 am
Posted on 9/22/23 at 11:09 am to auwaterfowler
quote:
What, if any, benefits are there to a stick burner vs a ceramic smoker?
They are completely different cookers and shouldn't be compared
Posted on 9/22/23 at 11:26 am to auwaterfowler
quote:
We are empty nesters now and I want to get a bit more serious about my smoking game.
If you have a ceramic cooker then just go with that. For backyard bbq it's plenty capable and if it's just you and the lady then you aren't cooking a large volume of meat.
Posted on 9/22/23 at 11:36 am to auwaterfowler
I loved smoking with real wood. Great flavor, fun and challenging. But as my kids got older, time became an issue so I went the pellet route. Now I can have my kids or wife go turn the thing on to get it going and even monitor the temperatures if I have to go to work on the weekends.
Posted on 9/22/23 at 11:37 am to auwaterfowler
It really depends on your palette as well. When I want bbq it’s stick burner only. Grilling, even pulled pork, wings, or if you just don’t feel like messing with the fire then use ceramic/charcoal. You just have to know going into it it’s not the same flavor, and that’s okay. Doesn’t mean it’s bad.
Posted on 9/22/23 at 8:21 pm to auwaterfowler
I have a Lang reverse offset, once you learn to use it can hold temperature relatively easily, nothing else tastes like stick burner bbq. You may think pellets or ceramics do, but there are reasons the top central TX bbq joints use post oak & hickory(amateurs use mesquite) wood in their smokers…
Posted on 9/22/23 at 8:34 pm to RichJ
quote:
there are reasons the top central TX bbq joints use post oak & hickory(amateurs use mesquite) wood
Really broad statement there. There are 40 kinds of hickories, I've gotten hickory wood that had shite for smoke flavor. Mesquite is really good. Post oak is hard to mess up, it'll burn hotter than mesquite though so you gotta watch it. I do mostly white and red oak here because it's easy to get and because if I hunt for hickory, as I said you don't know what kind you are going to get.
Posted on 9/22/23 at 8:45 pm to calcotron
quote:
it'll burn hotter than mesquite though so you gotta watch it.
Proves my point about amateurs & mesquite. Guys that do it for a living have it down to a science, have huge wood burning smokers. No green eggs or other ceramic cookers, or pellet grills around.
Posted on 9/22/23 at 10:44 pm to RichJ
quote:
Proves my point about amateurs & mesquite
I still don’t get the point. Harder doesn’t mean better. Work smarter.
Posted on 9/23/23 at 6:35 am to Irregardless
quote:
still don’t get the point. Harder doesn’t mean better. Work smarter.
I’m not a restaurateur, but have competed for several years in Memphis BBQ Network events(not my particular style, but the geographically closest available) and there is nothing easy about championship level bbq. Again, not arguing your preference, but repeating that there must a reason that all the top bbq joints use stick burners…
Page 1 of 3
Popular
Back to top
Follow TigerDroppings for LSU Football News