Finally smoked some ribs. First time ever smoking.


 
J

JBail

New member
After about a month of modifying my $20 craigslist char-broil H2O smoker, I finally got the nerve to actually smoke with it.
Decided to do some ribs because I was at Costco, saw some and said "Why Not?"

I mostly followed the articles on AmazingRibs. Once I got the St. Louis style ribs homes, I pulled the membrane, sprinkled them with some kosher salt and let it sit up in my fridge for a couple hours. Then I applied a rub of "Memphis Dust"
consisting of brown sugar (used light as it's all I had), white sugar, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, ginger powder and some rosemary. Let it sit overnight

In the morning I fired up the smoker. I modified the H2O smoker basically by adding a custom charcoal basket and basket holder that can be seperated by the smoker. I'd say it would be similar to a 18.5" WSM but I want the coals to burn for 14hrs without having to worry about refilling. It's also sealed up well enough to where the temps can be controlled by fan.

6OOf2XR.jpg-1


Ribs on at 10:40am. After a couple hours I started spraying with a 50/50 applejuice and water mix. I also had a water pan filled with water and apple juice as well. The heater meter was set to keep the smoker at 225 for which the most part it was doing.

QZGFqkv.jpg


About 1hr before I put on the sauce. I made sure at one point to rotate the ribs around the smoker even though I feel it was a pretty consistent temp./

Y376K3w.jpg


With the sauce, I just used Sweet Baby Ray's Hickory and Brown Sugar. I was more worried about the cook than sauces and rubs.

TYB6hKN.png


I didn't even think about up-close shots of the finished product. I was hungry and so was the family. I will saw that it was very very very good. There were some dry spots but overall it was very juice and most of the bones slid right out with little resistance.

Things to do for next time. Not really sure other than less peaking/spraying with apple juice. Debating on using the 3-2-1 method but I might repeat what I did because I will be inviting family over and don't want to mess it up with them waiting.

Thanks for reading,
Bail
 
Congrats on a first successful cook. Those ribs look great!

It would be great to see more pictures of the smoker to see how similar or different it is from the Smokey mountain.
 
BillSmith said:
Congrats on a first successful cook. Those ribs look great!

It would be great to see more pictures of the smoker to see how similar or different it is from the Smokey mountain.
Click to expand...

Sure. It started off as a Char Broil H2O. Very similar to the brinkman ECB's. I'm interested in smoking but didn't want to invest any major amount of $$$ if it ended up that I didn't like it.

https://i.imgur.com/P5Qh3xd.jpg

How I got. I've read quite a bit on ECBs and the big issue is controlling the temps since there wasn't any intake vents. I didn't want a Lay-Z-Que but I didn't want to be constantly making adjustments to maintain temps. My plan was to make a new charcoal basket and intake system to adapt to H2O. I removed the legs and the current bowl used for charcoal. Left with the body (with door), grates and lid.

https://i.imgur.com/IFWZKQb.png

Here was a rough draft of what I wanted to do (in grey). It consisted of an inner and outer basket. The outer basket had intake vents and legs to raise the unit off my deck.

https://i.imgur.com/XhyRG88.png

Here is a 3D model of the 2nd draft. It shows a cutaway so you can see the details. The inner basket that holds the charcoal has a bunch of holes on the lower edge and I've made a raised platform using expanded steel. Everything is out of 16ga (0.062" 1.5mm) thick mild steel. The "J" pipe you see was for a heatermeter. Since I didn't knew exactly how big the unit was, It was planned to go on the outside. Once I started 3D printing the blower enclosure, it was very possible I could fit the blower/damper under the unit and away from direct sunlight and weather.

https://i.imgur.com/YHfVUFb.jpg

I didn't get any pics of the fabrication process. But here it is fabricated and welded up. I haven't TIG welded in over a decade so my welds came out very horrible. The outer basket was sealed up pretty good. I added some retaining clips and there is a gaskets between the smoker and new basket. I added a new dial thermometer in addition to the "Warm, Ideal, Hot" so called thermometer in the lid. I placed it so the probe sits just below the top grate.

https://i.imgur.com/sMAooPz.jpg

Photo of the outer basket/stand

https://i.imgur.com/xSNRRow.jpg

Photo of the charcoal basket. You can really see the bad welds.

https://i.imgur.com/M5S9BAF.jpg

Baskets nested together. I ended up adding a gasket under the lip of the charcoal basket to prevent air from the heatermeter entering into the smoker itself.

https://i.imgur.com/SnlvMnm.jpg

Close up shot of the Adapt-a-Damper used with the heatermeter. I used PETG for the first time and it wasn't so bad.

https://i.imgur.com/rs0KZ6x.jpg

One of many test burns with the smoker. I was very worried about the heatermeter being able to keep temps but it does it very well. I've also added a lot of gasketing and added exhaust vents on the lid.

https://i.imgur.com/IlSjqPN.png

Here is a graph of my test run. I used cheapo wal-mart probes ($4ea) and they seem to work well. I used a glass of ice water at first and tested the probes along side with Thermapen and the temps were very very close to the pen.

If I'm using it often I will start saving my pennies for a 22" WSM or get my hands on a 120gal tank to make an offset with.
 
Thanks all. This weekend another set will go on. I want to use the 3-2-1 Method but this time I have family coming over so I'll just stick to what I did before.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

 

Back
Top