Well I got my WSM 18.5 yesterday; I have been smoking for about two years on my buddy’s WSM and have done a few KCBS comps with him as well. The last comp, my wife came along and got excited about smoking and gave me the go ahead to get my own smoker. I have used my kettle prior to this to smoke on.
I got home and put her together first thing, it went together in about 20mins. After putting it together I had to smoke something. So the only thing I could do in the timeframe I had was chicken.
I put half a chimney unlit in and then 1/3 of lit on top of it with three soaked chunks of hickory. I put the water pan in and hooked up my IQ110 and set it to 275. While it was coming up to temp, I prepped my chicken.
I went with two thighs and two breasts as that was what I had in my freezer and the only rub I had, our rib rub. I didn’t do the competition prep on the thighs, just thawed them out and rubbed them up both sides, same with the breasts.
Put them on the smoker at 270-275F for about 1.75h. I temp’d the breasts and they were about 5F over. I quickly sauced them by dipping and put them back on for 5mins to set the glaze. Then took them off and shut everything down.
They came out looking good for the first smoke and not doing any prep work to anything, meat, rub, or sauce. They had a wonderful smoky flavor, but they were overdone and a bit dry. The rib rub was way to overpowering and the wife and I found ourselves consuming a good bit of wine to calm the heat.
All in all it was a great first smoke. I do have a lot of leaking out of the rim of the lid, to the point that I had to do a foil gasket, but I’m thinking that after a few more smokes that won’t be a problem. Also I need to drill holes for my leads for the probes, just didn’t have time for that last night, so no hard time about running them in through the door! Haha. Thanks for listening guys!
I got home and put her together first thing, it went together in about 20mins. After putting it together I had to smoke something. So the only thing I could do in the timeframe I had was chicken.
I put half a chimney unlit in and then 1/3 of lit on top of it with three soaked chunks of hickory. I put the water pan in and hooked up my IQ110 and set it to 275. While it was coming up to temp, I prepped my chicken.
I went with two thighs and two breasts as that was what I had in my freezer and the only rub I had, our rib rub. I didn’t do the competition prep on the thighs, just thawed them out and rubbed them up both sides, same with the breasts.
Put them on the smoker at 270-275F for about 1.75h. I temp’d the breasts and they were about 5F over. I quickly sauced them by dipping and put them back on for 5mins to set the glaze. Then took them off and shut everything down.
They came out looking good for the first smoke and not doing any prep work to anything, meat, rub, or sauce. They had a wonderful smoky flavor, but they were overdone and a bit dry. The rib rub was way to overpowering and the wife and I found ourselves consuming a good bit of wine to calm the heat.
All in all it was a great first smoke. I do have a lot of leaking out of the rim of the lid, to the point that I had to do a foil gasket, but I’m thinking that after a few more smokes that won’t be a problem. Also I need to drill holes for my leads for the probes, just didn’t have time for that last night, so no hard time about running them in through the door! Haha. Thanks for listening guys!
