Had my first smoke yesterday, went with the basic rib recipe for WSM. It said to have the top vent fully open and the bottom three 1/3 open, with 1.5 charcoal starters of briquettes. Temp seemed high but I figured this would give me a benchmark for future. It ran at about 260 and at 3.5 hours the coals died. The recipe said the coals should be good for 4.5 hours so that didn't pan out. I lit some more and added them but then it was up to 290 so way too hot. I assume I'll have to close the bottom vents more? Need to do more research on this. All in all, despite a few issues, the ribs were fantastic. I'm sure they could be even better though.
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