Recent content by Doug Wade

There's a pretty good argument for using water for a few slow and slow cooks while you get used to the unit and it gets broken in (coated with a nice grease layer to fill in any gaps). Most people get away from it once they're comfortable with the unit - it eats a low of fuel, it can get really...

If I'm at a hardware or BBQ store I'll get whatever looks good. A couple of times a year I'm at the Lazzari charcoal factory and I pick up good there. And if I run really low on something and I'm not going to be at either I'll just fire off an order to Maine Grilling Woods. If you buy enough...

Yeah, I was thinking "salmon" more than "corpse disposal"!

Makes sense to me on a WSM bought used. Who knows what they cooked in it or how it will affect your next few cooks. Better to start with a clean slate.

I don't find the size to be a problem. It's a substantial unit but as noted the footprint isn't that big. If you needed to move it around a lot you might want to put it on some wheels or something, and as one person noted doing a "hot squat" (moving the center section off the coals while it's...

Easy enough to check the thermometer. Boil some water, take off the lid and there's some kind of a thing you can unscrew on the back of the thermometer to take it off. Stick it in the boiling water. Should read 212. Mine started reading about 10 degrees after a couple of years so you never know.

Good luck! I've made it from the boneless ones from Costco and it was good stuff. I just tied them up and cured them - no butterflying - but I was trying to replicate something closer to Irish rashers for an Irish friend who was missing them. They have kind of the same kind of meat/fat/chunky...

There's a variety of uses. They can corral coals. I often use something similar to the picture in post #2 although I don't know why he has any coals on the other side. Sear on the side with the coals, then move to indirect on the other. Similar to using the charcoal bin but depending on how...

Sounds like a success! You'll also find that going through this process has deposited a lot of gunk inside the smoker which helps to seal up any little gaps. You'll have more control with the vents mostly shut than the first time.

You definitely have enough good advice to make a second try of it and then you can go from there... but I'd say just to use apple wood. Better to go too light than too heavy on the ribs and they're actually quite good just with a couple of chunks of apple.

Looks great!

There's definitely confusion over terms here. When we bring the bacon up to 145 we're hot smoking it, period. Cold smoking is a technique where you're bringing in smoke but no heat - if you're raising the temps you're not cold smoking it. People will cold smoke bacon for 30-40 hours to layer...

Looks good! Agreed re: cooking it at lower heat than you're used to if you used any kind of sugar in the cure.

That's a perfectly reasonable temperature range.

The really good news is that once you get to that point the 4-5 hour cooks (ribs, etc.) are really easy.