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Firt off I actually bought this gadget because I'd spent a number of months trying to get a sawdust based cold smoke system working - and failed miserably every time.
I even bought 44lbs of oak sawdust that was said to be suitable for cold smoking. Which in my book means it's capable of sustaining a smoulder, which it manifestly does not.
I was convinced that the particle size of the sawdust was the issue - but had no idea of the correct size.
So I cracked and ordered one of these from macs bbq
Primarily to get the free bag of sawdust
The pro-q is similiar to Todd's amaze-n smoke generator in that it uses a labrynth style trail of sawdust to give a long slow burn. But it's completely different in all other aspects.
The box
What you get in the box
The mesh is quite fine - identical in fact to that used in cheap frying pan splatter guards (and how I Know this will be revealed in another thread lol)
The lighting system is different to the amaze-n smoker and - in my opinion, todd doesn't agree lol - much better.
You just light a tea candle (about 20 to the bag from buck stores/pound shops) shove it under the thin layer of dust at the end and after about 30 seconds it starts to smoulder you remove tealight and that's it lit. So far 100% ignition first time, every time.
Having examined the sawdust that comes with it I came to the conclusion that mine was slightly too coarse (not a lot in it but enough to be significant). So I bought another magic bullet and proceeded to grind my sawdust finer.
Test burn with the pro-q was a success !
And I still haven't used the sawdust that came with it.
It burns nice and slow.
Now to the actual practicality of it.
First off it's very small - about 4 inches square.
And while it does burn for 10 hours it doesn't kick out much smoke.
The test smoke in the outlaw was a real eye opener.
After a few hours I came to the conclusion that it just does not come close to producing the kind of volume of smoke I needed. Given that it only uses 4oz of dust over a 10 hour period - this really shouldn't have come as a surprise to me
So I lit it in a few other places.
This worked but reduces the burn time to about 3 hours.
Now - I'm not dissing the pro-q. It's not sold as being a smoke device for a decent sized smoker. It's designed for use in a weber kettle type grill or in a smallish cardbox type cold smoke setup.
So for that purpose I'd say it's an excellent piece of kit.
But as a replacement for 3 coals and a lump of wood in my outlaw it's a total washout. No good at all.
So if you want to some some cold smoking in your kettle bbq or a small cardboard box - this is great.
If you want to use your larger smoker for cold smoking - this is no use at all.
Keep your eye's peeled for how I've solved this problem and built my own cold smoke generator for very little money and without any welding (just some blood loss, a lot of sweraing and numerous puncture wounds :-)
I even bought 44lbs of oak sawdust that was said to be suitable for cold smoking. Which in my book means it's capable of sustaining a smoulder, which it manifestly does not.
I was convinced that the particle size of the sawdust was the issue - but had no idea of the correct size.
So I cracked and ordered one of these from macs bbq
Primarily to get the free bag of sawdust
The pro-q is similiar to Todd's amaze-n smoke generator in that it uses a labrynth style trail of sawdust to give a long slow burn. But it's completely different in all other aspects.
The box
What you get in the box
The mesh is quite fine - identical in fact to that used in cheap frying pan splatter guards (and how I Know this will be revealed in another thread lol)
The lighting system is different to the amaze-n smoker and - in my opinion, todd doesn't agree lol - much better.
You just light a tea candle (about 20 to the bag from buck stores/pound shops) shove it under the thin layer of dust at the end and after about 30 seconds it starts to smoulder you remove tealight and that's it lit. So far 100% ignition first time, every time.
Having examined the sawdust that comes with it I came to the conclusion that mine was slightly too coarse (not a lot in it but enough to be significant). So I bought another magic bullet and proceeded to grind my sawdust finer.
Test burn with the pro-q was a success !
And I still haven't used the sawdust that came with it.
It burns nice and slow.
Now to the actual practicality of it.
First off it's very small - about 4 inches square.
And while it does burn for 10 hours it doesn't kick out much smoke.
The test smoke in the outlaw was a real eye opener.
After a few hours I came to the conclusion that it just does not come close to producing the kind of volume of smoke I needed. Given that it only uses 4oz of dust over a 10 hour period - this really shouldn't have come as a surprise to me
So I lit it in a few other places.
This worked but reduces the burn time to about 3 hours.
Now - I'm not dissing the pro-q. It's not sold as being a smoke device for a decent sized smoker. It's designed for use in a weber kettle type grill or in a smallish cardbox type cold smoke setup.
So for that purpose I'd say it's an excellent piece of kit.
But as a replacement for 3 coals and a lump of wood in my outlaw it's a total washout. No good at all.
So if you want to some some cold smoking in your kettle bbq or a small cardboard box - this is great.
If you want to use your larger smoker for cold smoking - this is no use at all.
Keep your eye's peeled for how I've solved this problem and built my own cold smoke generator for very little money and without any welding (just some blood loss, a lot of sweraing and numerous puncture wounds :-)
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