Backwoods Smokers Fatboy

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boar_d_laze

Senior Cook
Joined
May 14, 2007
Messages
334
fatboy2.jpg


Bitching, Whining, Pissing, Moaning, Kvetching and Schrying:

  • Coulda shoulda been a couple of inches bigger every which -- big enough to get a full sized steam table pan in, and enough clearance to get something big in on one rack and still use the other three. Because why not?

    Construction tolerances are a little vague; if you're not careful you can twist the racks off their rails.

    Charcoal pan could use a handle.

No biggies, just sayin' is all. Otherwise, oh baby oh baby oh baby!

Urban Myths:
People who think the water pan is hard to clean are -- sorry -- wrong. Jeeze. What were you used to before? Besides there's no law saying you can't put a drip pan in the bottom shelf. I don't, but you could.

Verdict:
A very tight, and very easy to manage pit. With a Guru? Stupid easy. With the Guru plus a Maverick 732? Stupid easy plus no getting out of the tub. The spa is hot and bubbly, the beer is cold and bubbly, the chickens are smoking, Baby's happy, life is good.

Alternatives:
Compared to a Stumps? Yeah there are some tradeoffs, but... Tight and easy to manage is tight and easy to manage. There are differences, but they won't make any difference in the food on the plate, or the time, trouble and pleasure getting it there.

The Fat is better looking.

Bottom Line:
Yeah it could be tweaked. But it's much better than almost every other small cooker on the market, and at least as good as the very few others. All in all it's a great fit, and if ours disappeared I'd buy the same thing again.

BDL
 
Well thanks for the review. I love the concept but can see it has some cheesy grates about like my fifty buck Royal Oak electric model. Now the versions I have seen of BWS's in the past had some kind of a funky fixed water pan with a pipe running up the middle with a flapper on it. To have smoke or no smoke I guess. Glad to see they smartened up and fired the dumb injuneer who thunk up that deal.
 
bigwheel said:
Well thanks for the review. I love the concept but can see it has some cheesy grates about like my fifty buck Royal Oak electric model. Now the versions I have seen of BWS's in the past had some kind of a funky fixed water pan with a pipe running up the middle with a flapper on it. To have smoke or no smoke I guess. Glad to see they smartened up and fired the dumb injuneer who thunk up that deal.

You write humor well. But for those who don't get the joke...

About the same as a fifty buck Royal Oak electric, yes. Good call.

All but the smallest BWS still have a fixed water pan with a drain off to one side, draining through an exterior, side-mounted valve, to clean the liquid and gunk off the bottom of the cook chamber. That includes the Fatboy. Ordinarily there's no "flapper." Perhaps you were confused by an optional "auto-fill."

Smaller BWS may be purchased with optional removable pans instead of the fixed pan, allowing the cook to use her BWS as a direct, radiant-heat, cooker. I don't believe they're available on larger pits -- except in the sense anything's possible if you throw enough money at it. Waste of money, though. There are much cheaper ways to grill much better.

The smoke doesn't enter the pit through the water pan, and never did. On its way into the chamber the smoke travels from the fire box through the space between the interior and exterior walls, then enters through holes in the exterior walls. The exhaust's journey is similar, but through a different channel and set of holes.

BigWheel, I'm actually surprised you didn't know. You need to wipe the White-Out off your computer screen. That is White-Out isn't it?

The injuneer, Mike McGowan, is still there. Judging by their stiff tariffs, waiting list, their pits' comp record, the general user reaction, and experience with my very own Fatboy, it's good if he keeps on doing what he's doing.

I'll end up posting most of this on my blog anyway, so thanks for getting me more specific.

Hope it helped,
BDL
 
Well thanks for the additional details and glad to hear you like the new pit. I have several chums who are proud owners of similar beastes and they just love them to death. Heard many good reports on the owner of the company. He is supposedly a real nice Cajun type fella. In fact me and his best pal cooked right next to each at Fairfield one time. The Cajun guy was supposed to show up too but apparently he was busy. Fella down here who has one of the smaller cookers managed to run his water pan dry one day and got it super heated and warped his door real bad. He got on the phone to the owner who told him just where to put a two x four and whack it with a hammer in a certain spot..whamo everything popped back into place right from where it started. I may put one on my wish list to Santa one of these years.
 
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