I’ve been cooking on Meadow Creek’s offset SQ36 smoker for several years. Before I moved to PA, I swapped my older SQ36 with a display model we had in the warehouse. Since I take a lot of pictures for my blog, I wanted to upgrade to the latest design.

To break in the SQ36, I cooked a pile of food for a Friday night barbecue dinner—two whole chickens, two pork butts, a pork tenderloin, a rack of ribs, some chicken breasts, two meat loaves, a few pounds of loose sausage, and a pan of beans. All this fit on the SQ36 at the same time. In the kitchen, my wife made scalloped potatoes, veggies and dip, and a couple of ice cream desserts.

It was so much fun playing with my smoker and cooking all this food. I got plenty of positive comments and strengthened some friendships. Good barbecue can do that, you know.

There are many types of smokers on the market. They vary in size, fuel type, airflow, etc. The SQ36 is an offset charcoal or wood fired smoker, sometimes called a “stick burner.” The offset design places the firebox on the side instead of under the grate. The air draws in through the firebox vents and enters the smoking chamber through a distribution channel that tries to equalize the temperature from one end to the other. The stack draws air from the smoker at the bottom left.

Read the rest of this entry »

Our annual trip to Meadow Creek has become a fun tradition for us. Melvin always schedules Dealer Day on a Thursday, the same week they host a KCBS judging class, a benefit auction, and Meadow Creek Open House. The judging class is Friday morning; in the afternoon, they always have a large benefit auction. The food stand is open all day where they sell barbecue lunches, Amish-made pies and ice cream, and other goodies as a fund-raiser for medical bills. Open House is always a big deal on Saturday, where Meadow Creek gives away thousands of barbecue meals.

The meat for the judging class, food stand, and open house is cooked on-site with Meadow Creek chicken cookers and pig roasters and a Southern Pride smoker.

Friday and Saturday they had some people demoing different smokers and grills, including Big Green Eggs and a Meadow Creek TS250 Smoker and a TS70P Smoker.

Read the rest of this entry »

I just want to let you know that Yoder’s Smoky Mountain Barbecue has moved! Marlin has moved our dealership from Tennessee to Kalona, IA. He’s about 7 miles out of Iowa City and surrounded by Des Moines, Davenport, and Cedar Rapids.

Marlin wants to beef up his Meadow Creek inventory and keep an even nicer selection in stock than we had in TN. If you’re thinking of swinging by, you might want to call or email before you drive a long distance since he’s still trying to get settled since the move.

Read the rest of this entry »

As a Meadow Creek reseller, we’ve been grilling with the BBQ26S Chicken Cooker for years. Last month I got one of these for my own backyard as a birthday gift, so I thought I’d show you how Meadow Creek is changing backyard grilling with their chicken cookers.

Meadow Creek originally designed their Chicken Cookers for grilling large amounts of bone-in skin-on chicken pieces. The deep pits are part of the secret in grilling bone-in chicken; you still have a direct fire, but not as direct as a regular gas or park grill. (Have you ever tried grilling bone-in chicken on one of those?)

The trailer units with three or more pits make it easy to crank out huge amounts of grilled chicken. Instead of wiring two big grates together and having a couple of big men flipping them by hand, these grills have a rotating sandwich grate. The grates hinge along one side and lock on the other. Now even a 12-year-old can flip your chicken!

Read the rest of this entry »