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
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