I am writing this as a newbie to smoking hoping some of the pros can relate. I had a major smoking disaster yesterday that could have been avoided on many levels. I wanted to smoke some boneless spare ribs for a dinner at my sisters house on the other side of town. I had looked into several threads on times, temps, and techniques and felt fairly comfortable preparing the main course for this dinner. From my research, I thought that roughly 3 hours a 225 would give me a pretty good turn out, then I would sauce them, wrap them in foil, and get them over for dinner. My first and largest mistake was that stupidly on my behalf, I only gave myself 3 hours for the whole process with no room for error. I didn't account for cool down times in the smoker with chip adding or for the fact that yesterday here in South Dakota, it was about 15 degrees while I was smoking. Secondly, I left the house for about an hour and forty five minutes during the process and came home to a smoker holding at about 175. My smoker has a dial setting with no temp settings; you have to set it by dialing it in until it reads right. Needless to say, my great ribs that I had talked up to the family were refrigerated due to not being cooked through and fried chicken was served as the main course. The only good part about the experience were the lessons learned. I hope some can relate to my misfortune; I'm laughing now but was pretty upset yesterday. Thanks and good smoking!
