The main reason I took my ProQ smoker with me to Bribie Island, was for, Easter. I was tasked with lunch - pulled pork.

My wife bought this nice half shoulder and I was a little worried it wouldn't defrost in time, but come 3am when I woke up. It was good. I wasn't though, I was having a damn dermatitis attack.

Still we must solider on. I used very little rub of DL Jardine seasoning this time, as this is a cook for a range of people..

At 3:05am, the chimney was started with the camper burner and then it started to lightly rain. Joy. 20 minutes later, the meat was on with an internal temperature of 10C and the smoker's range hood was 230F.

At 4:25am, it was 350F with and internal temperature of 24C. I then added 2 more chunks of cherry. I figured at this point I would add the water pan, so I could head back inside and binge watch Empire. It was depressing, cold and wet outside. The range hood temp went down to 234F.

At 5:20am, the internal temperature was 49C. At 7:30am, it had hit the stall with 70C. I added some more beads to keep the fire going. At 8:00am, I removed the water pan. At 10:00ish, I put potatoes and corn on.

At 10:30am, the meat's internal temperature was 77C. I then added more beads to try and get it hotter (250F).

At 12pm, people had begun to arrive and it was still sitting on 77C. At 1pm, I took the food off to rest.

I was dead tired at this point and hurting from my dermatitis, so I wasn't in the socialising mood, but I stuck it out and people loved the pulled pork. They'd never tried meat that was smoked that way before and loved it.

This weekend, I'm at Bribe Island, where my in-laws now live. We managed to pack the ProQ smoker in the back of their 4WD and brought it up for a visit too. Time to show the in-laws how great BBQ smoking can taste. I suggested smoking the sausages they had for dinner. Nothing fancy, but that's okay.

At 3:20pm, I lit the chimney using a camper burner. I got that tip from my friend Ben, as that's what he swears by and after all the trouble I've had with firelighters lately, so I welcome any and all advice.

10 minutes later and all the coals are lit and good to go. I'm liking this.

At 3:40pm, the sausages went on with the rangehood at 210F. At 4:05pm, it had risen to 270F, so I close 2 of the ProQ's vents.

At 4:30pm, I closed all the vents as it was now up to 338F. I turned the sausages and I have to say, the onions look done. At this point, I decided to leave the top lid off to release some of the heat. This got it down to 296F.

Still too high, so I put the water pan in the ProQ with a little bit of water, which helped to stabilised the temperature to 255F.

At 4:55pm, it had gone down to 234F, so I opened one of the vents up. 15 minutes later and the sausages look good enough to eat.

They went down a treat. I think I've converted some more people to the smokey tasty benefits of a BBQ smoker. My father in law loved them so much that he ate 5 for dinner and another 3 for breakfast.