Well I suppose it (grill) does mess things up a bit. To me though it doesn't seem worse than doing any other cooking or prep in the kitchen, it all makes some sort of mess. I am partial to the grill. It's results cannot be replicated in the kitchen as easily as the griddle. Buy this I mean You can easily place a griddle pan over a burner or two but how do you replicate the grill? A good broiler can be quite effective as a substitute for a grill though. While the results are different, they may be an acceptable substitution. Many on this site have posted great results, steaks in particular, with a broiler. Think about how and what you cook. A grill is high on the want list but for us it was quite low on the need list. We got the grill 'cause I really really wanted it :o) Pay attention to your vent hood if you get a grill. You want some decent air flow here. Check the FAQ on hoods.

>>"Their YouTube videos are great" You're kidding, right? They struck me as rather stilted and amateurish infomercial fare. I think they could use Vince the Sham-Wow guy to spice them up. Billy Mays is rolling over ... Do you want to replace your home grill with one of these things? One would probably be pretty cool so long as you have electrical power available outside where you grill. Being able to set the thermostat and walk away for 5 hours while your ribs cook at 190º is pretty awesome, but having to keep bags of wood pellets around is not. I am not sure that there is enough advantage to that to induce me to give up on my gas grill. Plus, I am not a fan of overly smoked meats; there is enough flavor in the smoking a haunch gets over the course of a few hours in the grill to suit me. What I wonder is what is the quality control of wood pellet ingredients? Aren't they designed for use as heating fuel? Do they use bizarre chemicals in the manufacturing process that could get into the food? Selenium Burgers!

We went to a couple of barbeque places today and ending up buying the extra large Big Green Egg, and I think we will be very happy with it. Kevin thinks it will be great for parties, and now it will be even easier for us to cook for a crowd. Since we now have three charcoal grills, we can use separate grills for separate dishes which will make it easier for us to make multiple dishes at once, even if they require different temperatures. We also have the electric smoker, and I have to say that we get a more intense smoke flavor from that than we do from the charcoal - or at least it permeates the meat more. For smoking chilies, only the charcoal will do the job the way I want it. The BGE that we bought also has a pizza stone and can be used for grilling pizza - something that I've been wanting to do since first visiting the pizza making forum. We bought some outdoor lights for our pergola, and I think they will provide way more light than we required, but at least we can lower the wattage when we want to. I haven't bought anything for lighting the fountain yet because I want to have that installed by an electrician on an exterior wall of the house. I'm hoping to light much of the back yard that way and have it on a dimmer. I don't really want underwater lights in my fountain at this point but will talk with the electrician about that. I'm thinking that I will get my yard lit in stages and start off with getting some outdoor outlets installed at strategic points so that lights could be hooked up later. We went out for dinner this evening because I wanted sushi! We haven't assembled the Big Green Egg yet. Lars

Thank you, everyone. I've learned a lot from your comments already. This is a Masterbuilt charcoal smoker that looks like R2D2. The thermometer is in the lid, but after I saw it wasn't getting up to temp, I got out my digital thermometer, stuck it through the vent that was as closed as much as it would go. and into the one butt. The reader stayed on a side table I had there. Both thermometer read pretty much the same. The butts were 6 pounds each. I couldn't find my charcoal starter chimney so I got the charcoal started in the bottom (closed) right off the bat. I checked it through the side door and didn't put the butts in until the charcoal turned grey. I never opened the lid until I decided to take the butts out. I'd read where you should avoid opening the lid and door. It was quite windy out and just a touch cool. I live in south central Indiana at the very top of the tallest hill. I did wonder about that. I can't take it back because it was bought last summer and the receipt is nowhere to be found. I have a Brinkman charcoal smoker my late husband husband told me to go buy as my Christmas present several years ago since I wanted it, but it was never opened and I haven't been able to find where he stored it. I will not give up. I now have a small pork loin that will go into brine tomorrow to start the process for Annie's Canadian Bacon. Oh, and I had to buy another bag of charcoal today since I used most of the bag I had. Again, thank you each and every one of you. That's what I love about Gardenweb, the helpful people. Only ran into one or two over the years that were not very nice, but they pretty much are gone. Madonna