My first BBQ with the Weber Smokey Mountain

My wife and I invited her family over this past weekend for a cookout. We had a total of 6 "eaters." We decided that I would smoke baby back pork ribs.

The week leading up to the cookout, I spent obtaining my wood, making the rub (BRITU), ordering my Weber, and buying the meat.

I have a friend who was able to get me some oak and cherry chunks, I had to trade him the chunks for lunch. Not a bad trade considering the amount of wood that he brought me.

I ordered my Weber on Tuesday at a local hardware store and they promised that it would be in the following Friday.

On Wednesday I made the mistake of purchasing my meat. I have little experience in purchasing meat and was afraid that if I waited to till Friday I would not be able to find what I was looking for. Well I purchased 3 slabs of ribs weighing about about 1 3/4 #'s apiece. They looked excellent and I wrapped the up and put them in the fridge. Come time to take the ribs out of the fridge on Saturday, they had become rotten. They smelled terrible and looked kind of green. Needles to say, I threw them away and frantically begain searching for a new place to purchase some ribs. Luckily, I found them at a meat market not too far from my house. Come to find out, the butcher told me that they always have ribs in and I wouldn't have any trouble finding them there in the future. Lesson learned.

My smoker came in as planned on Friday and I assembled it in only a few minutes. Piece of cake. I woke up Saturday morning and begain prepairing for the smoking session. Other than the earlier mentioned mishap, things went very well.

I fired up the smoker using method number one. I went ahead and filled the chamber with charcoal because I was afraid that I would run out of fuel. The only problem with this was that I had to wait longer after assembling the smoker for the temperature to come down. This (and the meat mishap) put me behind a little over an hour (just more quality time to spend with the inlaws).

As the cooking got started I had absolutely no problems. I checked the temperature every 15 minutes and made adjustments accordingly. I kept the temperature right around 240* (measured from the lid) most of the time. Towards the end of the cooking it got up around 250* and I was unable to bring it down.

I turnded the bones at the three hour mark. I used a rib rack and the bones on the bottom portion of the ribs were showing nicely. At the four hour mark I checked for completion and the bones on the bottom (after one turning) were not pulling away as nice as the others so I let them go an extra twenty minutes for a total cooking time of 4:20.

The ribs were delicious and well worth the time and effort. I am looking forward to smoking them again. I learned a lot from my first experience. I also had a blast outside enjoying the warm weather.

Hey Matt, that's awesome! I'm glad that overall you had a good first experience.

In terms of the meat, it's always best to get it as close to your cooking date as possible, usually the day before. If you have concerns about the availability of a certain cut, just call the butcher early in the week and tell him what you want and when you want it...a good butcher will take care of you.

In terms of not being able to get below 250*F toward the end, I would use less charcoal. 1-1/2 chimneys should be enough to cook 3-6 racks of ribs for four hours, with heat to spare.

And you showed a lot of guts by cooking for your inlaws on your first time out. I wouldn't have had the courage to do that!

Best regards,
Chris

[This message has been edited by Chris Allingham (edited 03-07-2000).]

Talk about pressure! First time at it with the IN-LAWS over no less. Congrats Matt!