This year was a year of firsts. Smoked ham on the WSM, Smoked turkey on the brand new ProQ!
We have never smoked a ham or a turkey so we decided to do both this year...no practice, no try outs...just jump right in, let it all hang out. Get the family together and try something new!
The ham we did was a precooked ham we simply heated up in the WSM. We placed it in a pan to keep the glaze from running off into the water pan and smoked over Kingsford hickory charcoal. After the ham reached about 140 internal I started opening the WSM and re-glazing the ham every 20-30 minutes. The glaze was something my mom put together so I am not sure what was in it but it was very good. The ham turned out AWESOME!! I have now used the hickory charcoal twice and can say I do like it...it has surprised me both times just how much good smoke flavor it imparts.
Now to the really important stuff...Turkey on the new Excel 20. At the Pulte event my dad picked up a ProQ Excel 20 for a very good price. He wanted something bigger than the WSM to cook the turkey on, the Excel 20 fits the bill and for the price, who can ask for anything more. We have cooked on the WSM enough times to know what to expect from this style of smoker but as with anything new you just can never really know for sure how well things are going to work....
Well I can say the Pro Q works VERY VERY well! We thought it might take longer than the WSM to get up to temps and it may have but only by a little. We thought it might use way more fuel and I guess it did but it is by no means a fuel hog. It burned for over 12 hours on a single load of charcoal and that was with temps between 250-300 for the entire cooking of the turkey. We do not use water in the WSM but we thought we might add a little to the ProQ. We put very little water in the pan and for most of the cook no water at all. With water in the pan it wants to hang at 220, we wanted higher temps so we let the water cook off and did not replace it. As soon as the water was gone the heat was up to 250 and hung there like a rock. I was/am impressed.
Later that evening (about 12 hours after we started the charcoal) I checked the temps on the ProQ, the dome therm read 210 and the charcoal was still aglow...
Cheers to ProQ and the Excel 20...it was a mighty fine day of eating.
