Howdy pellet gurus!!!

[rwalters]

Hey guys and gals! Been cooking outdoors for a long time now... almost exclusively over lump charcoal. With that said, I owned a Traeger back in the day, when they were manufactured here in the US. As much as I enjoyed the convenience of that ole Traeger, I was never fully satisfied with it. It left almost no smoke profile on the meat, and it struggled to hit 400 degrees on a warm day. It was pretty much a < 325 degree cooker. Well, I used the heck out of it for a few years, and then got fed up with it's short comings, sold it, and went back to lump charcoal. Fast forward to today... I have been cooking exclusively on Ceramic grills/smokers for the past few years. LOVE THEM! So what brings me here? We have a large family, which means we quite often have a pretty crazy schedule. Personally, I find cooking outdoors to be very therapeutic... but with a large family, there are many days where I simply do not have the time to cook over lump charcoal. So what to do??? Last month, I sold one of my kamado's and bought a fellow pelletsmoking.com members Mak 1 Star...thanks for selling old faithful #69 Sparky!!! All I can say is that I absolutely LOVE this Mak 1 Star. Because of the pure ease of using it, I have been cooking outdoors more then ever... probably 5-6 days/week...and the results? OUTSTANDING!!! Between my Kamado Joe Big Joe, and my new (new to me) Mak 1 Star, I am finding that they make a VERY NICE team!

Thought I'd share some recent cooks with you guys. Some done on the Mak, and some done on the Kamado:
Thanksgiving turkey

Big ole butt

Bunch of tri's

APL honey glazed spatchcock chicken

Melt in your mouth baby backs

Extra meaty beef ribs

Reversed GrillGrates smash burgers

Mak smoked sausage minestrone soup. YUMMO!

 

[Tomsmccann]

Looks tasty!

 

[scooter]

That's some fine cooking right there! Nice camera work as well

 

[Rip]

Looks great! Thanks for sharing. #69 saw a lot of ribs when Sparky owned it

 

[rwalters]

Looks great! Thanks for sharing. #69 saw a lot of ribs when Sparky owned it

According to sparky, it hasn't seen the light of day in 2 years as its been parked in the garage of his cabin. Has a few blemishes, most of which I've touched up with the free can of high temp paint that Matt from Mak sent me. It runs like a champ, or should I say...purrs like a kitten. I see Mak's as a 20 year cooker easy (with reasonable care).

 

[Rip]

Long before #69 ended up in the garage at the cabin...about 4 1/2 years ago IIRC, she and her sister MAK1 #63 were part of a business endeavor where Sparky was churning out smoked ribs for a local butcher. Not sure how long that lasted but I'm pretty sure both MAK1's saw a LOT of ribs back in the day.

Next time you see him tell him Rip says hi.

 

[rwalters]

Will do... you can definitely see evidence of some big time smoking that went on. She's well seasoned ;-)