DaveCrosson
New member
Hi all,
I'm Dave from Bergen County NJ - this is my ugly mug. Sorry in advance since my pics are all huge and I dont know how to shrink them:
I've been an avid griller for a while now and wanted to step up to smoking. I have been using a Char Broil Quickset gas grill for the last 5 years, after I moved in to my apartment since the original owner didn't want to take it with him when he moved out. It's not the greatest grill on the planet, but it's decent. Temperatures are all over the place. I can still cook some damn good food on it.
I just picked up a 18" WSM on Saturday and was able to put it together and do my first cook yesterday. Putting it together was very easy - only took me about 15 mins or so.
Before:
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After:
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I live with my girlfriend, so my first cook was small - just a rack of babybacks. I picked up an all natural rack of Smithfield ribs since that what was available at the local A&P. I wanted to get cooking by 4pm, so I planned on lighting the coals a little after 3pm. With this in mind, I unwrapped the ribs, washed them, rubbed some mustard on the whole slab and then used a rub I made from Myron Mixon's backyard basics book (or whatever its called) - slightly modified.
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I wrapped it in foil and put it back in the fridge while I built a table for my girlfriend and put together the WSM. Right around 3pm I got started. It was a pretty muggy day and the smoker got up to temp pretty quickly. I wanted to be around 225, but even with the bottom vents nearly closed it just didn't want to get under 239 for some time. It held at 239 for the first 90 mins of the cook, but then the temp went up to around 244 - then later down to 224. I think this was partly due to the weather and the sun beginning to go down and cool things off. The ribs ended up cooking for about 3.5 hours - turned out like this when I took the lid off for the first time.
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After I sauced and cooked them a few mins longer, they looked pretty tasty. I used Sweet Baby Ray's original sauce on these ribs.
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This is one of the ribs I took a pic of the see if there's a smoke ring. I'm not really seeing much of one - something to learn from here. They still tasted damn good and had a firm, but tender consistency.
Also made greek potatoes and asparagus as sides. Yumm.
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All in all I would call this a success especially since this is my first time ever cooking ribs, and ever using a smoker. Anyway, I hope to post many successes in these forums. Take care everyone and good BBQing!
I'm Dave from Bergen County NJ - this is my ugly mug. Sorry in advance since my pics are all huge and I dont know how to shrink them:
I've been an avid griller for a while now and wanted to step up to smoking. I have been using a Char Broil Quickset gas grill for the last 5 years, after I moved in to my apartment since the original owner didn't want to take it with him when he moved out. It's not the greatest grill on the planet, but it's decent. Temperatures are all over the place. I can still cook some damn good food on it.
I just picked up a 18" WSM on Saturday and was able to put it together and do my first cook yesterday. Putting it together was very easy - only took me about 15 mins or so.
Before:
After:
I live with my girlfriend, so my first cook was small - just a rack of babybacks. I picked up an all natural rack of Smithfield ribs since that what was available at the local A&P. I wanted to get cooking by 4pm, so I planned on lighting the coals a little after 3pm. With this in mind, I unwrapped the ribs, washed them, rubbed some mustard on the whole slab and then used a rub I made from Myron Mixon's backyard basics book (or whatever its called) - slightly modified.
I wrapped it in foil and put it back in the fridge while I built a table for my girlfriend and put together the WSM. Right around 3pm I got started. It was a pretty muggy day and the smoker got up to temp pretty quickly. I wanted to be around 225, but even with the bottom vents nearly closed it just didn't want to get under 239 for some time. It held at 239 for the first 90 mins of the cook, but then the temp went up to around 244 - then later down to 224. I think this was partly due to the weather and the sun beginning to go down and cool things off. The ribs ended up cooking for about 3.5 hours - turned out like this when I took the lid off for the first time.
After I sauced and cooked them a few mins longer, they looked pretty tasty. I used Sweet Baby Ray's original sauce on these ribs.
This is one of the ribs I took a pic of the see if there's a smoke ring. I'm not really seeing much of one - something to learn from here. They still tasted damn good and had a firm, but tender consistency.
Also made greek potatoes and asparagus as sides. Yumm.
All in all I would call this a success especially since this is my first time ever cooking ribs, and ever using a smoker. Anyway, I hope to post many successes in these forums. Take care everyone and good BBQing!
