Smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em. And, WE JUST GOT ‘EM!!!! My first foray into smoking. I have been putting it off for a longtime while I enjoyed the professionals excellent smoked tasty. What’s inside? A rack of ribs and a half a pork butt. Both covered in Rendevous BBQ dry rub. Chips=Hickory. Temp 165. (this is my worry right now. I can’t seem to get it up to 225 but not sure if I need to). Stay tuned for the verdict. AND NOW THE VERDICT…
I realized about an hour after I posted that I needed more air flow in the smoker in order to get it hotter than 165 degrees. This led me to some “on the job” modifications. When the job is on fire, it always makes for interesting work. Using my fire pit as a staging area/work bench I hatched a plan to pull the charcoal pan from the smoker flip it into the fire pit and drill several holes in the bottom of it. Of course the key part of this is not to let the smoker loose that much heat so, I needed to move fast. In order to be as fast as possible I would need new coals ready to go immediately. That menat I needed to have my chimney smoker filled and burner in teh fire pit as I worked on teh pan. To add more heat to the situation, once I flipped the coals that were in the pan they would continue to burn while I worked on the holes.
The plan wasn’t the smartest but it was the quickest. Moving swiftly I started my process. Open, pull, flip, drill, burn, push, dump, close. All went seamlessly. In the words of Hannibal Smith, ” I love when a plan comes together”. Immediately my temp bumped up to 240. Exactly what I needed. For the next few hours I smoked in this heat range and things really started to work out.
The above pork shoulder came out nice. I pulled it exactly at 154 degrees. I would have liked it to pull from the bone a bit more. I think my temperature issue was to blame for this.
I also had some ribs in there. These came out nice too. A little dry and my pink ring was not as thick as I would have liked but not bad for my first go round.
After such a tough day battling the smoker I decided to keep dinner simple and authentic with the standard or July fourth fare. Next smoker date is tomorrow. Let’s see how attempt two goes.
July 4th, 2010 at 9:15 pm
Once you get a feel for your new toy, I suggest smoking up a bacon explosion.
July 5th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
We deep fried some pork belly today. I think you are exactly right about the bacon explosion. That is definitely on the list.
July 6th, 2010 at 9:25 pm
I’d love to see the smoker integrated into the next reel tasty!
July 7th, 2010 at 7:22 am
If you’re planning on smoking anything in the 200-225 range with oak and or hickory, I’d suggest using some of the extra space on the rack for sweet Italian sausages. Someone suggested bacon wrapped sausage as a nice flair. Made for a nice smoked sausage and pepper dinner last night.
July 7th, 2010 at 8:37 am
Sean-Ohh it’s on. Don’t worry. RT guests will definitely be able to revel in some smoked.
July 7th, 2010 at 8:38 am
Todd-Love the bacon wrapped sausage idea. Do you smoke a lot? You see to have some great ideas and knowledge on the art of smoking.
July 7th, 2010 at 8:56 am
I’m a fan of smoking and have been reading up a lot. A few of my friends do it a lot, one even has a professional caliber rig wired to the internet so he can monitor temps and adjust air flows from his iPhone. Personally I’m just getting into it, having only recently bought a new grill that can be used as a smoker with just a bit more supervision then an upright rig. Any excuse to cook outside instead of firing up the oven in this weather is a huge plus for me!