My brother-in-law recently built a very nice smoker, from an old propane tank. About 10’ long. He put it on a trailer, so it’s easily portable. Could use a coat of paint, but that won’t make it work any better.
Last weekend, he smoked a whole pig for a graduation. The party was at 6 p.m. Saturday. We were to eat shortly after. He put the pig on a 3 p.m. Friday, at 275*!! You can imagine what happened. It was awful. Tough, dry, very little smoke flavor, just charcoal. Worst part is, the poor guy thought it was great. Oh, and, he also put six chickens on. At 10 a.m. Saturday. Right over the fire! by 6, they looked like six little bowling balls. I don’t think there was any salvagable meat on them. What bbq abortion.
The lesson is, it’s not the equiptment you have, it’s know how to use what ever you have. I far from claim to be the greatest at grilling / smoking, but I could have at least made it ediable.
That’s too bad.You’re right in that it’s not about the equipment you have but it’s how you use it and your process that’s more important. I’ve seen guys BBQ on those cheap little habatchi grills you can get at the Dollarstore that tasted like competition BBQ and visa-versa as you have witnessed.
It’s not how big your tool is… but it’s how you use it. 
Whole hog would be tricky…I’ve never done it, but it combines, naturally, a ton of different cuts that each have different ideal cooking methods and temps.
The subject line made me think back to that epic rib pic you posted on the other forum Weaz! I’ve made some bad ribs…no, MANY bad slabs of ribs…but your pic was awesome. Those ribs looked like they were at at ground zero of the trinity testing site.
Practice, Practice, Practice. Gota feel a little sorry for your BIL. I’m sure he meant well. Roasting a whole hog is a challenge for professionals, and they still mess it up sometimes… Cheers!!!
That’s too bad about the hog man. Doing it at 165-200 would have been better. Maybe introducing him to the BBQ Brethren might be all your BIL needs weaze.
I’m fortunate that my experience goes back 40 years with BBQ. Picked up smoking techniques fairly easily in my weber kettle. Graduated to inadequate rusted out barrel grill and still made decent Q. But then using the BGE really was like picking up a Stradivarius. Regardless, I’ve managed to F some meat up even in that due to unforeseen complications.
However, I’m beginning to look again at other equipment options…
That was pretty epic. I just had to repost, for a laugh. And I’ll never forget the conversation I had with my buddy about them when we pulled them off.
Me : " I’m really upset. That was my dinner"
Buddy " I’m a black dude from Mississppi. How do you think I feel?!"
Maybe, possibly, could of used them for baked beans? Parts maybe?? Happy to see I’m not the only one who has cooked dem bones well done… ;) Cheers!!!
Only thing could have been done with these, was to use them as charcoal to do my next rack on.
SACRE BLEU!
Those beef ribs look pretty bad but surely something could have been done? Maybe chopped beef.
So I guess it was KFC for dinner that night…
I’m telling you, these ribs were burnt to charcoal all the way through. There was NOTHING that could have been done. I mean NOTHING!
Call Al Gore. I think you need to buy some carbon offsets.
What the hell weaze? How could they ever get that bad, did you ignore them for 7 hours?
Fired up the bullet smoker (my first time using) Put in about 15 bricks of charcoal. My temp was only 200* or so. I added 5 more bircks. Temp was still low, so I added 5 bricks. Repeat this process, then walk away for an hour. Your smoker tends to hit 250* real fast! Try about 450-500* It was ugly… :-[
It’s only funny because it happened to someone else
I dunno, I laughed my butt, and I know the guy it happend to pretty well. ;D
I love how some of the bones weren’t just blackened, but almost have this grey-whitish look like they’ve almost been bleached by too much fire. Weaz, we’ve all screwed up food on the grill, myself too many times to count, but you at least have the distinction of having burnt ribs to a level of comedy and then having the good sense to upload a picture of it! ;D
I’m still not sure how a charcoal bullet smoker could have gotten away from you like that…they can have temperature spikes but dang that thing must have been a kiln for a while! I do most of my ribs on a plain old Weber kettle now, though I do have a Weber Smokey Mountain bullet. The kettle is just the tool I have the most familiarity with, it feels like a trusty tool to me by now and I’m rarely surprised by it, which is a good thing!
I don’t care who you are, that’s funny right thar!
Epic ribs!
I remember that pic from the “other” forum. What comes after burned? Incinerated… 
I woulda guessed someone painted them with sauce at the beginning… and then walked away for 7 hours. ;D
Some friends of mine and I have been experimenting with cooking on newly emplaced lava. It is pretty challenging. We’ve burned up a lot of food that way, but we’re getting the hang of it. (cooking with 1500F)