The Newest Additions to the Cru

Last week I drove 7 hours to Kenosha, Wisconsin and 7 hours back in one day. I was able to watch the sunrise and sunset on the same trip. I was not traveling to a BBQ competition as one would expect, but to pick up the newest additions to the Cru, two new cookers. For those not familiar they are called Fast Eddy's Cookshack 100's (FEC100 for short). These two beauties will allow us to cook 200 lbs. of pork shoulder in one sitting, allowing us to do some small-scale vending and catering.

In addition to increasing our cooking capacity, these cookers are perhaps the most reputed on the competition bbq circuit, helping cooks to win countless awards. I believe this is due to two reasons:

One is their ease of use. Fast Eddy's Cookshacks are wood pellet fueled, using tiny woodpellets fed via hopper in to a firebox at a rate that carefully controls the cooking temperature. The rate at which the pellets are fed in to the firebox is controlled by a computer attached to the front of the hopper. This allows the cook to essentially plug in the unit, turn it on, fill it with meat and walk away.

Second is that they make a great product. In the bbq world you hear all the time "it is the cook not the cooker", and I fully agree with this statement. However, the level at which these cookers hold their temperatures thanks to the brains of the operation--the IQ4 controller, allows a cooker to achieve a level of consistency in their product that is second to none. In other words, it removes one variable from the cooking process allowing extra attention to be paid to all the other variables.

Additionally, compared to the other allowable forms of heat available to the contest cook, wood pellets offer a more efficient burn and produce less ash than charcoal or wood. This will not only save us money on fuel, but is a more "green" option of barbequeing.

Now don't expect to see Big T'z roll in to the American Royal in two weeks with these babies in tow. Even though they are incredibly easy to use, it will take time to fine tune and them to fine tune me before they are ready for competition. The plan is to practice with them over the offseason and see how I can fit them in to the process. I love my Weber Smokey Mountains and wont give them up easily, so as of right now I envision using both--exactly how is what needs to be figured out.

In the short term and no matter how they will fit in to our competition strategy we plan to use them for some small scale vending and catering. So if you are one of the people that has been waiting to get your hands on some of our barbeque, stay tuned in the coming weeks as we iron out the details on that.