Hey canada3!
No worries, I'm glad you are feeling better. I'm sure if you air out the smoker after and clean it well it will be fine. It would truly suck if you could not do fish and other things in it.
So far I have done 2 small sirloin tip roasts, and those were ok, but need to be done to a higher temp in order to be tender. I pulled the first one after about 2.5 hours at an internal temp of 145. Tough and way too rare for me. I popped it back in foil to cook with the other one, and we left it til bedtime and they both came out much better. But surprisingly they only came up to 160 with the additional 4 hours of cooking. A solid 3 hour stall. I'd give the finished product a 6.5-7.
But I did Costco Baby Back Ribs on Canada Day. Wow. 7 hours since I had some trouble keeping temps up in the morning. But just wow. 9/10 for sure. No foil, just olive oil and a rub and straight on the racks. They were super tender and getting close to fall of the bone, but it was nice to have a little structural integrity to them. My guests were so pleased, that for the effortlessness of doing them straight on the rack with no fuss, I don't know that I would ever bother foiling them. Maybe 1 time as an experiment. Nice thing about the Costco ribs is that the membrane is already removed. So easy.
Last night I cut some boneless chicken breasts in half and wrapped them with bacon. (I was in a hurry and figured the cut pieces would cook faster). They cooked in 40 min at 275 degrees. Fast. Chicken was juicy and perfectly cooked, but bacon was too soft for me. I popped the remainders under the broiler for 5 or so min, and I'll see what they are like for supper tonight. I think that is the way to go. Or if I had done whole breasts, maybe the bacon would have had time to solidify if not entirely crisp up.
I was supposed to do my first Boston Butt this Friday night to eat Saturday, but something has come up that I won't be home to monitor the smoker Friday evening. So it just won't work time wise. I guess I'll do ribs again for my guests on Saturday. Fantastic, but disappointing for me as I really wanted to try the long slow smoke.
I can't wait to hear about your first go round when it happens!