The first smoke has begun!


 
B

Brian HFX

New member
First, a big thanks to Paul Lai, Bob Mann and Chris Allingham for help on my last post. So I started my smoke, 2 slabs of BB's from Costco and the **** things are so thick it was hard to roll them lol. Bob I went with your lighting/fuel advice and am running with Chris's intro rib recipe and while people are "concerned" with how much the word pepper showed up in the rub - it smells great (I'm the only one who likes the spice).

So I may be just jumping the gun but wanted to make sure I'm not missing something. I had to use chips as I had no and could find no chunks (which sucked as they smoked, then burst into flame, and back to smoke) but the cooker quickly went to 200 so I adjusted the bottom dampers to half thinking I'm close to 225 so let it creep up but it started to stall around 210 - so I opened the dampers up and it went to 230. Now I read that the dome is 25-50 degrees warmer than the top grid (and I don't have a Maverick yet) so I figured if I let the dome get to 250 I should be fine regardless. It's been about an hour and it doesn't seem to be getting past 240 with all 4 dampers wide open. Now it's a little calm wind wise today but I wasn't sure if it takes a while for all those coals to heat up or if maybe it's due to the amount of water in the bowl etc. I'm not super concerned as I have lots of cold beer and I can wait for good ribs - they were quite thick so I don't think 4.5 is going to be long enough.

Thanks again and I appreciate the help during this learning period =)
 
Sounds like you are doing real good!! Gotta get some chunks for your next smoking adventure!! :wsm:
 
Ronin, remember it's whether the meat is done not necessarily time that determines when it's finished. You can use the bend test or the tooth pick between the bones to determine that
 
Glad we were able to help you out.

RoninHFX said:
Now I read that the dome is 25-50 degrees warmer than the top grid
Click to expand...
The dome thermometer usually reads 25-50F LOWER than the top grate temperature. If you brought your cooker to 250F on yours, you are probably cooking at around 275F+, which is fine for pork ribs. They should be done in about 4 hours. Use a toothpick to test for doneness.

I used water the first year I had my WSM, I don't anymore. IMHO, water is problematic on many levels and gives no advantage to the finished product. One problem with water is that it makes running the cooker at a higher temperature difficult.

Sounds like you are doing good!

Cold beer is a good thing!

Bob
 
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