Virgin Smoke (St. Louis 3-2-1, and some Chix)

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snedecor

Newbie
Original poster
Jan 3, 2013
9
10
Angleton, TX (S of Houston)
Since I first got my Brinkmann SnP for Christmas (complete surprise), I was at first chagrined (to see how bad it was to start with) and then heartened (by all the mods you experts have recommended over the years.

I made the 20/20 charcoal basket, lowered the stack, got a digital thermo, and set out with trepidation to do some St. Louis ribs and leg/thigh quarters.

I found a rub that looked interesting on the board, and put it on both.   I filled a foil cake pan with water and placed it at the firebox entrance to the smoke chamber.

With the modifications, I found that I could control between 225 and 235 at grate level (about 250 on the Brinkmann built in thermo).  It was great to see that a damper setting change of  from 1/4 open to 2/3 open made a pretty decent change in the grate temp.  8 lb. of brickettes lasted about 5 hours.  The grate keeps the coals out of the ash pretty well.  The only minor panic was when I added more unlit charcoal at about 4 hrs.  Temps went down, white smoke went up for about 15 minutes!  I was opening the ash door, fanning the coals, etc.!


I suppose this is what is meant by TBS?


  Chickens came off at 175 (wife likes well done.  Skin was great and well seasoned.  Meat had pink smoke color and good smoke taste, but not much evidence of rub.  I need to work on that...


Ribs did about 2.5-1.75-1.  Ribs are just about ready to come off.  Is this what you mean by meat retraction?


a big THANKS to all the contributors to this board who helped make my very first smoke a pretty good affair!

Gayle Snedecor
 
Gayle, morning....  Looks like you have figured it out...  How was the smoke flavor ??....  If you added more charcoal at the start, you wouldn't have to add during the smoke, but you probably figured that out already....    Great job on the ribs and chicken....   TBS looks perfect....  Dave
 
Thanks, Dave,

Smoke taste was not too strong, but present.  I used oak briquettes and added mesquite chips during the burn.  Family loved the meat, but wife commented that the ribs were a bit sweet.  I used a rub based on brown sugar, and added some sweet (KC masterpiece type) sauce at the last, I'll have to continue to experiment.

I will definitely either add more charcoal at the start, or at least add pre-lit charcoal during the burn, that was a nerve-wracking temp. swing!

We didn't have all the ingredients to do one of the rib rubs we found on the forums, so we "improvised".  I jokingly told my wife, "We should have written it down, we may like it"  We did, and were both trying to remember "What did we put in that rub?".

I just hope I can keep the SnP from rusting out long enough for me to learn a bit more...
 
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