Hardwood Smoke Meets Diesel History: Feeding 1,800 People With the Meadow Creek TS1000 Tank Smoker

Well, the Meadow Creek TS1000 has starred at another major event. This time, it’s the Mack Truck 125th Anniversary Celebration at Volvo Group Trucks in Hagerstown, Maryland.

Founded by brothers Jack and Gus Mack in 1900 as Mack Brothers Company, Mack Trucks was acquired by Renault, which was acquired by Volvo Group in 2000. So when Mack Trucks turned 125 years old this year, Volvo Group Trucks wanted to celebrate in style.

Keep reading for the yummy details. Or scroll on down to the photo gallery to see the feast for yourself—including plenty of shots of the TS1000 in action!

The Event

Volvo’s caterer, Aramark, needed to feed 1,800 people, and they wanted a feast worthy of the occasion. So they reached out to multiple companies to handle different foods. To supply the pulled pork and brisket, they called on Chef Jeff Fritz. 

Jeff recruited a stellar team of foodservice professionals, including Iron and Oak catering, who cooked some eye-catching live-fire whole hogs and other great food. But he knew he’d also need a huge smoker to turn out exceptional barbecue in bulk. And he knew exactly where to find one.

The Smoker

The massive TS1000 Tank Smoker has been getting a bit of a reputation since we introduced it a couple of years ago. It's so big, it's hard to grasp how imposing it is unless you're standing next to it. Most people will never need a smoker with this kind of capacity. But for those that do, it's a tool like no other.

For this event, the TS1000's job was to smoke 56 pork butts, 55 briskets, and a small pig—more than 1,000 pounds of meat all told.

That's a big cook, but it's no problem for the TS1000. And this one had an underrated upgrade that made it even easier.

The Killer Upgrade

See, we had fitted this TS1000 smoker with the revolutionary Gas Assist unit. And on big, long cooks, Gas Assist changes everything.

Gas Assist takes a tank smoker that's already famous for its stable temps and adds a propane burner and a thermostat. It's still a stick burner. The meat tastes just like it does off a standard Meadow Creek tank smoker. You can still power it with coals and your favorite smoking wood. 

But Gas Assist takes over the temperature control for those times you want to do more socializing or sleeping and less babysitting a fire.

In fact, if you're feeling extra lazy, you can run it on propane alone. Just set Gas Assist to the temperature you want, let it run, and throw in a couple of sticks of smoking wood now and then for flavor.

The Results

Powered by the flawless teamwork of hardwood coals and Gas Assist, the smoked brisket and pork off the TS1000 won applause all around.

With eight sliding stainless steel grates and a total of 130 square feet of cooking area, the TS1000 could have handled more meat if the event had needed it. The warming box alone holds six full-size restaurant pans. And the rugged road-legal tandem-axle trailer made getting it on location a breeze.

In the words of Chef Jeff Fritz, "The TS1000 was a beast and did a fantastic job smoking for almost 24 hours."

Keep scrolling to browse the photos from this fun event.

Or check out the TS1000 here.