Smoking with the Cube?

  • My wife won a Cube in the MLA Best Butcher competition earlier this year and it arrived the other day. I've not had a chance to use it yet but wondering what everyone's experiences are?

    What are you cooking with it and most importantly, has anyone tried smoking with it? (I doubt you can given how small the things is and the fact that it don't have lid, but I'm wondering if anyone's tried..).

    WSM 18' Smoker (since Christmas 2019 = certified "L" Plater) / Everdure Cube / Gas 4 burner / Metters' Dover No. 7 Wood Stove

  • Realized as soon as I posed I needed to add pics... :) Here are the pics. It's a nice compact looking little unit.

    WSM 18' Smoker (since Christmas 2019 = certified "L" Plater) / Everdure Cube / Gas 4 burner / Metters' Dover No. 7 Wood Stove

    • Official Post

    Just like a hibachi which is great for using up your small bits of charcoal. You can do fish, grill a steak etc. Wrap some wood chips in foil and throw that over the coals to make a smoke producing heat deflector.

    Check out all my posts using the baby kamado and do something similar.

    They are handy to have and the price is definitely good !! :thumbup:

    Big Green Egg - Asmoke Pellet Grill - Weber Kettle - Maximus Pizza Oven - Dragon Hibachi - Ziggy Portable - baby kamado - Grillz 2 burner - Cobb BBQ - Converted Gas Bottle Spit - Charbroil Grill2go - Anova sous vide - Digi Q controller - plus Tip Top Temp - Smokeware cap - Grill Grates

  • Not sure you can without a lid for it :dunno:

    It would also need someway of controlling temperature.

    I think it's only for grilling

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    Enjoy your "Q"
    James

    Primo XL, GMG Davy Crockett, Char-Broil Grill2go, Akorn Jr and Weber Baby Q.

  • Not sure you can without a lid for it

    Yeah. That was my take too. It's clearly designed for open cooking as per the video and not for smoking, but worth asking in case anyone here had come up with some sort of mod for it.

    I think @Gumb is on to something here though. I do dig the baby kamado. Something like that is definitely going on my list. Will take me a while to trawl through your posts on the topic but there are some gem's there. Clearly the rule around here is the number of BBQ's you need is n+1 where n is the number of BBQ's you currently have...

    WSM 18' Smoker (since Christmas 2019 = certified "L" Plater) / Everdure Cube / Gas 4 burner / Metters' Dover No. 7 Wood Stove

  • I saw that and noticed that my local Bunnings have them for $250. It's steel versus ceramic tho? Doesn't that make a difference?

    WSM 18' Smoker (since Christmas 2019 = certified "L" Plater) / Everdure Cube / Gas 4 burner / Metters' Dover No. 7 Wood Stove

    • Official Post

    Clearly the rule around here is the number of BBQ's you need is n+1 where n is the number of BBQ's you currently have...

    I like the way you are thinking :thumb up:

    Big Green Egg - Asmoke Pellet Grill - Weber Kettle - Maximus Pizza Oven - Dragon Hibachi - Ziggy Portable - baby kamado - Grillz 2 burner - Cobb BBQ - Converted Gas Bottle Spit - Charbroil Grill2go - Anova sous vide - Digi Q controller - plus Tip Top Temp - Smokeware cap - Grill Grates

  • I saw that and noticed that my local Bunnings have them for $250. It's steel versus ceramic tho? Doesn't that make a difference?

    Certainly makes it more durable if you're taking it places. I take mine camping and it's great. I also use it at home for when I don't want to fire up the big one. Does everything the big one does, just on a smaller scale.

    I don't have a ceramic kamado though, so can't comment on how they stack up against each other.

    Dragon Kamado - Fornetto Razzo 18" - Akorn Jr - Pro-Smoke Offset

  • No different to a ceramic. In my opinion it is actually more efficient in that it uses way less Charcoal than the big Primo. But that may also have to do with heat soak and just a larger area to heat.

    Yes the Jr does everything that the big one does. The one thing I don’t like is you need to drop an extra $50 if you want the char Griller deflector.

    Enjoy your "Q"
    James

    Primo XL, GMG Davy Crockett, Char-Broil Grill2go, Akorn Jr and Weber Baby Q.

    • Official Post

    has anyone tried smoking with it?

    It is made for grilling, but if you really want to I'm sure you could smoke a small chook, a couple of steaks or some sausages in there. You'd have to manage the charcoal very carefully and get creative with some caterer's alfoil.

    Masterbuilt Gravity 800 | Maximus Pizza Oven | GMG - Daniel Boone | Cyprus Grill | Big Steel Keg | Blackstone Griddle | Fire Pit | Weber Genesis |

  • I take mine camping and it's great. I also use it at home for when I don't want to fire up the big one

    I like the sound of that! :clap:


    I guess could easily 'sneak' the Cube into the camping gear on our next trip, along with some chorizo and almonds or cashews then pull it out, put on a foil lid on it and and smoke up some "drinking snack"s.

    As for the Akorn Jr, I think I'll put that, plus a deflector plate on my wish list as smoker to take out camping and perhaps for use around the house as a from time to them. Perhaps given I can wait a little, I might catch Bunnings on a sale too.

    WSM 18' Smoker (since Christmas 2019 = certified "L" Plater) / Everdure Cube / Gas 4 burner / Metters' Dover No. 7 Wood Stove

  • I've used mine for smoking before, but it is definitely not designed for it.
    Sadly there is no airflow from the bottom, all air comes in from the top.
    I used a Mondo cake pan from spotlight with a handle drilled into it for the lid.
    Offset the lid slightly to vary the airflow from the top.


    From memory I used 8 briquettes and then put wood chips in foil on top of them also to act as a deflector for direct heat because the meat is so close to the heat source..
    Temp wise i can't recall however it lasted about ~2hrs which was plenty for my purposes (i did chicken and beef ribs) as you're much closer to the heat source than in a kamado or smoker.
    Smoke flavour was definitely there without overpowering.

  • They were the first ribs i'd ever made, and as such i loved them.
    I did them 3 or so times before i got a full sized BBQ. From memory it was 2 lots of 2 ribs together
    Not quite fall off the bone tender, but given they were cooked in 2 hours they were great.

    Definitely would say I get a better result on the Dragon, but we are talking ~120-130 degrees for 5hrs, and a whole rack (7?) of ribs.

    I guess the results really depend on how much time you put into it.
    It took me a while to determine the right amount of charcoal and placement of the woodchips (the foil acts as a deflector to stop indirect heat) to get temps right.
    The more time you're prepared to spend with it, the better results you'll get.

    If it was the only BBQ I had, i'd have no problems doing ribs on them again.

  • First post and signed up simply to say thank you! (sorry for the necro but probably beats thanking all of you individual in a PM)

    My wife got me a cube for my birthday a few years back and I had been simply using it as a grill. Even then sparingly as we lived in an apartment and smoking everyone out all the time probably wouldn't have made me any friends :)

    Anyway we have since moved and I now have my own yard. Stumbled upon this post when looking for DIY lid ideas and hadn't even thought of using foil with woodchips as a heat deflector! So with my cake tin lid (no one uses the 25cm one anyway right?!?) I started out with some simple chicken kebabs, the smoke worked and temperature was easy enough to control with the lid and foil.

    Feeling more confident today I attempted my first smoked butterflied chicken. Turned out fantastic (as fury said the first time you are always going to love it), temperature was a little hard to control but three hours later it was at temperature and we had some yummy smokey chicken.

    So thanks all appreciate the tips and looking forward to tackling some ribs soon.

  • That is awesome. I have just ordered a cake tin on line. I will make some vent holes based on the we**er Go Anywhere that I could no longer get grill and charcoal racks for.

    wil

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