r/CampChefSmokers

This is a long overdue post for two separate cooks. I wrote 90% of the first cook but lost it when I was distracted to too long.

30 May 2026: Earlier this year I bought a new Camp Chef Woodwind Pro 24 since I found such a great deal through a Veteran website. It sat around in my garage still in the box for a couple months. My youngest son’s first birthday was coming up so this was enough motivation to get it set up and give it a try. I made three separate main course meats for the birthday party each used the new smoker. I also sous vide two of the meats and air fried one. The breakdown for each are below.

Pulled pork: I used a combination of mustard and BBQ sauce as the binder then the rub was a generic Kroger chicken rub without salt. I added the salt and MSG separately. I smoked this for around 12 hours at 250°F. I used the smoke box for the first 4 hours.

Beef plate ribs: I used some Arby’s Horsey Sauce as the binder because I ran out of mustard. The rub was simply salt, black pepper, MSG, and garlic powder. I smoked these on the high smoke setting (approx 220°F) for 3 hours. Next I sous vide them for 24 hours at 155°F. After sous vide I kept the plate ribs in the bag and chilled them in an ice water bath for an hour. After the ice bath I put them back on the smoker at 250°F for three hours then wrapped and rested in a cooler for a couple hours.

Chicken drumsticks: I smoked these with the first beef plate ribs smoke for 3 hours on the high smoke setting (approx 220°F). After smoking I bagged them up and sous vide them for 3 hours at 155°F. After sous vide I left them in the bag and chilled them in the fridge over night. A half hour before the party I took them out of the bag and air fried them for 20 minutes at 400°F.

Everything came out very good. The beef plate ribs were the biggest winner. Even my in-laws that don’t eat beef gave them a try and raved about them. A couple more good cooks like this and I might turn them back to glorious beef. The pulled pork shredded easily and was nice and smokey. The beef plate ribs were really juicy and smokey. The chicken drumsticks had great smokey flavor with crispy skin. I had a jar of hatch chilis and some caramelized onions to go with everything.

I think I will try beef plate ribs only on the smoker to see how they come out. The process using both the smoker and sous vide isn’t hard but does take a long time. The final product was so good I don’t mind sticking with it unless only using the smoker is close to as good or better.

I probably will only smoke or air fry the chicken drumsticks in the future. It was a lot of extra work using all three techniques with it. I have since tried sous vide followed by air frying and the difference was minimal. I normally air fry chicken thighs and they come out so good. I haven’t done drumsticks yet so I guess I should try this but I feel pretty confident only air frying will yield the best product for the amount of work.

27 June 2026: My brother was visiting for one of his annual trips stateside so I decided to cook up a brisket to remind him of the awesome BBQ he’s missing while out of the country. I first trimmed up a prime brisket from Costco and kept all the fat trimmings in a drip pan. I chopped the trimming into small pieces and will dive deeper into this later. Next I separated the flat from the point since I planned to sous vide them after an initial smoke. I used yellow mustard as the binder and seasoned with some Montreal steak seasoning I had and black pepper. The initial smoke was for 3 hours on the high smoke setting (approx 220°F). After the initial smoke I bagged up the point and flat then sous vide them at 155°F for 24 hours. After the sous vide session I kept the point and flat bagged but chilled the bags in an ice water bath for 1 hour. After the ice water bath I remove the point and flat from their bags and put them back in the smoker at 250°F to bring them up to 130°F. Once they reached 130°F I removed them from the smoker and wrapped them up in foil to rest before dinner time. I also made some bacon wrapped jalapeño poppers that were smoke at 250°F for 5 hours.

The jalapeño poppers came out great but those I have done a ton of times so there was no surprise there. The flat was a little dry but still very good. The smokey flavor was at a perfect level. The point was far better. It was very juicy and perfectly smoked.

This was my first try at brisket. I have a couple of techniques to try next. I saw a post to sous vide at 135°F for 48+ hours then raising the temp to 155°F for 8 hours. I will still do the initial smoke and finishing smoke with this technique but will try dropping the finishing smoke to the high smoke setting (approx 220°F). I will also try just smoking until an internal temp of 165°F then wrapping and letting it go longer until it gets to 203°F and tender with the meat thermometer.

Back to the brisket fat trimmings I chopped un into small pieces. I put the chopped up fat pieces in the drip pan and added some water as well. I had the drip pan in the smoker each time it ran for this cook. When the smoker wasn’t running I put the drip pan in the oven at 250°F. I think the total amount of time in the oven or smoker with heat was around 12-15 hours. What I was left with was 6 cups of smokey rendered brisket fat and a gallon Ziplock bag of small crispy pieces of fat that didn’t fully render. There’s also some bacon fat drippings in there from the jalapeño poppers as well. Not enough to make much of a difference but a nice footnote. I plan to try making chili crisp with the smokey rendered brisket fat. I might try cooking with it as well. I have used bacon grease instead of oil or butter when making corn bread in the past with delicious results. For the smokey small pieces of crispy fat I was brain storming some ideas today. I thought about adding them to salads, mash potatoes, and/or rice but then got the most interesting idea. Using these smokey pieces of crispy fat with my next venison or antelope burger grnd. I normally use salt pork as my fat/binder element with venison and antelope burger grind. It just tastes so much better than pork or beef fat. Like adding a little hint of bacon flavor. Well this technique will hopefully add a little hint of smokey brisket flavor.

Overall comments from the two cooks: Each one of these cooks is their own experiment for me to figure out what I like the most. This is so much fun and I love seeing my family and friend’s reactions to the final products. A big thank you to those sharing their own trials on Reddit. These help save time and give a direction I want to explore for each meat.

Found this loose at the bottom of my grill while vacuuming ash. Have no clue where it’s from or where it goes. REDDIT HELP PLEASE