I wanted to wait till I'd done a few different types of cooks on this before posting a review. After cooking for over 18hrs on it for a group of 20 people last weekend, I reckon I'm starting to get a decent idea.
After some research across various sites I went for the GMG Daniel Boone. It was as big as I needed, very easy to control, cheap to run and the one thing that really stood out was the reviews of GMG's customer service. If Im spending £695 on a smoker I want to know Im in good hands.
Delivery & set up
I actually collected mine from Chris at awesomegrills just outside York, but delivery is included in the price. The unit comes as one large central piece with just legs, chimney, handle and side tray to attach. Im not the handiest person in the world but it took me no more than 30mins to put together.
All assembled.
There is a heat deflector and side vents to install and a full length drip tray. Lined the tray with foil and inserted grates. About 5 minutes in total.
Added the drip bucket and we were ready to go
First Burn
This was as easy as I'd seen from the GMG videos. Primed the firebox with a few pellets, filled the hopper and turned it on.
When you turn on the GMG it cycles through a few phases. The auger turns, feeds pellets into the firebox and ignites. It really is that simple.
Power
When mains power isnt available, its nice to know that this thing isnt too power hungry. My battery pack with a 300w inverter has no trouble running it,
Cooking
As you can imagine its a doddle to use. It gets to temp quickly. About 15min from powering on and Its very responsive. There is a slight temp variation it seems from one side to the other, all of about 10° and I can live with that. Testing on some of the sites like pelletheads reckon at about 250° it consumes about 1lb of pellets an hour. Roughly 60p. Ive not tested that myself but the results seemed pretty thoroughly worked out.
The European smokers only display in °C at first I thought this may be a problem but its amazing how quick you learn what the equivalents are. The temp can be changed in 1° increments and also displayed in smoker or food temperature with the supplied food probe. The hopper also has a low pellet alarm to warn you you're running low.
Food probe attached to control panel.
Clean Up
A quick brush of the grates, tear a layer of foil from the drip tray and empty the bucket, done.
At the end of each cook you can set the grill to clean itself. It burns any remaining pellets left over in the burn pot while a fan blows out the ash. I was truly amazed at the small amount of ash left over. After several overnight smokes there was never any more than a couple square cm left in the pot.
The food
40lb of pork shoulders on a bodged second shelf.
Probably the best pork I've cooked so far
4.5kg of home made turkey pastrami
And finally some ribs.
Conclusion
The only downsides I have found so far is the lack of a second shelf. A GMG one can be purchased but I'll probably sort something out and there is a slight drip of grease from the elbow of the chimney. I'm talking really slight. After that 18hrs of cooking probably about 4 drips. Nothing that cant be fixed with a dab of high heat sealant so I've read.
I know by now its starting to sound like im on commission, but I do love this smoker. Its still early days with it, but I'm very happy with my purchase.
Nick