Insulated, upright, barbecue cookers

I knew this day was coming. I've braced myself for it since April 30 (the last cold day here in my part of Southeast Michigan). It was 19 degrees last night with snow flurries and I don't think it was much more than 25 degrees for a high temperature today.

Weather like this would make it pretty near impossible to do much barbecuing with a log burner offset cooker. For cold weather barbecue cooking, it's pretty hard to beat an insulated cooker; and better yet, an upright insulated cooker.

I'm not a scientist, but it didn't take me long to figure out that cookers with the heat source below the cooking grates are more efficient than cookers with the heat source adjacent (offset) to the cooking grates.

I can cook pork butts or briskets on about 10 lbs of charcoal for 9 or 10 hours using sand in the water pan and with water in the pan it takes around 13-14 lbs of charcoal.

Last winter I cooked several briskets in temperatures near 10 degrees with little trouble. If you are in the market for a new cooker for next year's competition season, be sure to check out the insulated cookers on the market: Backwoods, Stumps, and Dominizer are a few of the ones I am familar with and I'm sure there are others. Give them a serious look. You won't regret it.