I've been making meat products for over 40 years. About half that time I've worked with commercial meat companies on how they can improve their products or how my company can replace their current Ingredients. Needless to say I am almost always the one cooking for holidays, get togethers, etc.
This Thanksgiving was my and my family's first in Tennessee. I was born and raised in California, having spent the better part of 56 years there. For the last few years I've been involved with smoking meat and have used a dozen or so different smokers.
This year I decided to buy a Camp Chef pellet smoker with attached sear box. I read reviews for a couple of days and this one stood out on maintaining temperature, ease of cleaning and ease of changing to different pellets.
My biggest concern was 25 degree nights and how that would affect my start up and cook times. I'm happy to say the cold temps had no affect on my Thanksgiving smoking at all. I smoked a turkey and prime rib together in under 7 hours.
The prime rib was salt encrusted and turkey had an all purpose seasoning rubbed on it. They were both nice and juicy, with the prime rib done rare:
All in all a great Thanksgiving in our new home. I can't wait to get a couple more smokers out on our back patio and really make the neighbors mouths water.