Postby PinoyPitmaster » Wed Jun 13, 2018 12:34 pm
VAULTS: This is what happens when you cross and Egg with a Stick Burner. Double walled insulated cookers that look like a floor safe, with high performance, generally lightweight insulation inside the walls. Often taller and with increased capacity over kamado cookers and generally a lot lighter comparatively based on volume, they are often a “rib box” type design, and can either operate on direct heat with a bottom firebox, or an offset firebox in some cases. Very common in pig competitions around the South and catching on in other areas. These can range from little refrigerator re-purposing rigs sold commercially at the box stores, to full on heavy gauge customs that look like they were fabricated by Orange County Choppers. Strengths: The cheap ones are easy entry point starter units you can easily fit on the back porch and do a credible job with. Some of the more sophisticated consumer rigs are computerized and ELECTRIC of all things (HISSSSS), with a TV clicker/controller thing that you set and forget. The custom rigs are full on restaurant quality chef tools. They share the high efficiency thermodynamics, small volume fuel requirements, and precise temperature control functions typical to the Egg, with the size and capacity advantageous of the Stick Burners. Weaknesses: Typically no grilling capacity, these are generally just smoke boxes. . Operators: Guys who use these are of two types. First is the general consumer who wants to cook some reasonably decent home barbecue and buys the little electric refrigerator cooker so he doesn’t have to clean up the mess. The folks buy a Honda lawnmower because they think it will last 40 years, even if they will be dead in 20, and all the accessories including the mulching grass catcher. They stencil their name on their shorts and their trashcans – they don’t know why, the moms told them too. They are very neat. The other Vaulter is yer hardcore competition cook. He’s the guy who will set the thermometer at 226 degrees and makes darn sure it will stay there, because in 6 hours and 12 minutes, his ribs will be PERECT (and likely, they will be). He makes his own rub, measures out the ingredients by the ounce on a kitchen scale, and puts the “made on” date on the container. He has every episode of Barbecue Pitmasters recorded to DVD, and has all his competition events programmed into the calendar on his iPhone (as well as the app that connects to his remote thermometers to give him a temperature histogram). He jumps in his custom painted ATV to run his meat to check-in, and then slow cruises it around the grounds to see who he’s up against. He draws a walk in 2 out of 3 categories at every cook, every time. He loves barbecue so much, he’s in the business. Between competitions, he shines up his Vault with carnauba wax. His rig is a full on traveling showroom. Dr. Smoke falls in this category; none would argue he has one of the prettiest rigs in the business.
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Love it. I started "Stick" and now going "Vault" style you even got the operator characteristics pretty close......