Experience of BBQ smoking for the first time.

[juddi]

Hello
He are some of the experiences when BBQ smoking for the first time.

I think the guys on youtube from the US of A, need to be more clear when they are talking about temperature. eg 220 - 250 degrees. Being from another age and from the UK, I took this as celius. I realised today that IT IS faranheight. This would have save me a lot of trouble and sweat at 4am a few week ago when I fired up an homemade smoker. Tried to get the beast up-to and maintain a temps of 225 degree celius. No wonder I struggled and gave up after 8 hours. Lesson learned.

Fire up my recently bought WSM today and put a 6.5lb pork butt and half a rack of ribs on it.
With my experinece of the my earier disaster and trials with my homemade smokers.I decided that when it came to the amount of charcoal to start off with, more was best. I put 10k in the pan and put a full lit chimney in the centre of the unlit charcoal 11k in total. This worked quite well as the smoker reached 225 degrees F quickliy and it was still running hot after 9 hours as the charcoal burn;t from the centre outwards. Used apple wood chunks instead of the chips for the smoke seasoning.

Struggled a little with controlling the temperature of the smoker. Put this down to opening the lid a lot and messing around with the vents. Next time I will leave it well alone when it get to the ideal temp. Will also need to invest in some digital temperature monitors for the meat and for the grilling area. I don't trust the temp probe built into the dome of the WSM. Does anyone know of a good make?.

As with my earlier attempts and from today. The pork butt after 9 hours in smoker did not get close to a internal temp of 190 degrees F or 88 degrees C. I used the rough guide of 1.5 hours per pound and the highest the internal temp of the pork was 75 degrees C. It was getting dark and decided to finish it off in the oven as the temp of the pork had peaked at 75 degrees C for the last 1-1/2 hours of smoking. I'm putting this down to not leaving it the smoker long enough, the pork but being put on the lower grill near the water pan, opening the lid too often and not being able to read / adjust the actual temp near the grill of the smoker. Has anyone got any tips of how to get the meat to the right internal temp.

The smoker was putting out a lot of white smoke from the lid seals and dome vent for most of the time. Is this normal or is there something that I need to do to correct it?

Apart from the above the end results of ribs and pork butt tasted quite good, there was a good smoke ring and the pork butt had a good bark. Though it did taste a little bit of charcoal. It was pitty that by the time it came to eating the end results I wasn't really that hungry. Looks like pork on the menu for the next few days.

That me all smoked out for now. Thanks Juddi.

[Mike_P_in_Tucson]

Lots of lessons learned, weren't there?

For thermometers, use Maverick. The ET 73 is dual probe, and remote, so you don't have to hover around the smoker. Put one in the meat and the other inside the smoker. I have 2 ET72's, single probe remote. I just use one for the meat and one for the smoker.

For pork butts, only time will get it to the right temperature. It usually gets to around 165F, then sits there for a long time, as much as 3 - 4 hours. When it starts to climb again, it will do so rather quickly. The 1 1/2 hour per pound rule is a guideline, but every smoke will be different. So for a 6.5 pound butt, you can figure around 10 hours. But taking off the lid adds time because heat escapes.

If your WSM was new, it needs time to get seasoned. That will help make it more airtight.

[All Weather Griller]

Hi Juddi welcome to the forum,

I too have a WSM with the internal lid thermometer and can confirm that even with that I still use the Redi Check ET73 as per Mike's post. When you have these on you can see that the lid probe is roughly 50degrees too low.

Again as Mike has said you may find that over the next few smokes that it will settle and become a little more stable as the joins seal. One thing that I do with my WSM's is to put the doors on upside down. This allows the smoke to remain in the top of the smoker instead of creaping out of the top of the door.

I am now using the Clay saucer method as opposed to filling the water pan with water. This seams to give me much more control over the temps using the vents alone, I have had cooking temps of 225F for 18 hours with this method.

The WSM will always spike when you have the lid off, what you need to do is learn and have the confidence to know that it will return.

Hope this helps

Adie

[Steve]

On your white smoke issue...

That usually means that the fire is choking and not burning cleanly. You should be seeing a small amount of blueish smoke during the cook. Sounds like you had way too much fuel on there to me. If using minion method you only need a few lumps of lit charcoal to maintain a happy 250F.

[philnewts]

Hi

I carried out my first smoke yesterday with my Pro Q Excel 20.

All in all it was ok but I suffered a lot with low temps, struggling to get above 200 degrees. I was using lump and had a foiled water pan just over half full.

I think I went wrong by not letting the charcoal get hot enough to start with and this led to lots of white smoke throughout the cook.

After a few hours I decided to add more lit briquettes to the remaining lump, I also did not refill the water pan and I saw temps up to 250 degrees.

Lessons learned

Let the fuel get started before closing up the smoker.
Briquettes were easier than lump especially for a newbie but you need a good brand.
The Clay saucer method will likely be of help to avoid low temps due to too much water.

My 6 Pound Pork butt went on at 9.30 and was done by 9.00pm - I think the low temps and my need to mess with the fire slowed this up a bit. I let the pork reach 190 internal then let stand for an hour in foil.

All in all a good first attempt and the food did actually turn out pretty good....

I Was pleased with the bark

Smokin!!

Worth the wait

[Mike_P_in_Tucson]

That looks great, phil!!!

On the temperature issue, were you relying on the lid thermo, or did you have a second one to confirm the temp?

[philnewts]

I used a probe through the top vent and eyelets for the first 2 hours alternating to try and familiarise myself with how the excel cooks. The lid thermometer was pretty accurate but both the lid and the probe were just under the 200 mark. Having established that the lid was pretty much on track I left the probe in the pork from then on.

I was concerned about over fuelling.

Can I ask does lump enhance the smoke flavour as the food was quite smoky once cooked - not bitter but quite intense

I used 3 large apple wood chunks and a handful of cherry chips during the 12 hour cook.

[All Weather Griller]

Hi Phil,

I used to get a heavy smoke flavour when I used chunks. Although common folklore would have you believe that you can't over smoke with Apple (I'm not convinced, I think you could overdo any wood)

I use restaurant lump as a fuel of choice and I find that it tends to give me a clean burn, but like you say I would assume that it would enhance a smokey flavour. I suspect with briquettes you would get an element of starchiness which is what they tend to use as a binder these days.

I use wood chips now which gives me a little more control over the amount of smoke that I get, although this does mean a little bit more maintenance especially when competing.

I know that a lot of people use oak chunks and I even have some whiskey barrel staves, but I am very modest in the amount I use.

Hope this helps

Adie

[philnewts]

I may try a cook with no wood just to be able to understand the basic flavours and build up from this. I loved the results I have had so far but with little experience of what it is "supposed" to taste like it is difficult to know how well you are doing.

I guess July comp will be a wake up call or confirmation I am doing things well.

Thanks for your input.

[Steve]

I use chunks as my first choice over chips but this is probably because of my laziness

For a pork butt I place one fist-sized lump of cherry (or other fruit wood) and one slightly smaller lump of oak. I nestle these in my unlit fuel then light up in minion method. My wood tends to burn through in about an hour and a half and gives me the level of smoke I'm looking for.

Adie's chips method is just as good and offers you a more dynamic method of controlling the smoke, but for me once it's lit it's beer o'clock and te only fire maintenance I want to do is giving the smoker a qucik kick every couple of hours