OK, I'm doing my first smoke in my new OK Joe's Highland smoker right now. I'm smoking three racks of baby backs that my wife purchased at COSTCO a while back. It's been raining for weeks now, so I am finally getting to the smoking. I have seasoned the smoker and made my mods. I get no more than about a 10 degree difference across the grates, if that. So far so good. Trouble is that I doubt these are going to come out as well as I would like. I couldn't get the membrane off of any of them. Normally, I have no trouble pulling it off with the aid of a bit of paper towel, but today it wanted to pull off in tiny little particles, not enough to get going on any of them. I ended up leaving it. I've been smoking them for three hours at about 225* with Kingsford blue and some chunks of apple wood. I was intending to get some photos and was in a hurry to wrap and get them back on and totally forgot until I had double wrapped and returned them to the smoker. I used up the last of my charcoal so if my heat dissipates, I will have to finish up in the oven. I started out with a coat of mustard and my mix of Memphis seasoning from a mod recipe that I picked up on line. When I wrapped them, I used squeeze butter, orange blossom honey, raw sugar, just a bit of BBQ sauce and Dr.Pepper. I will let them cook wrapped for two hours because I want them real tender. Then I will open the foil and put a diluted coat of spicy BBQ sauce on them and maybe a sprinkle or dusting of Memphis seasoning. A little more open heat and then I will test them with the tooth pick and put them away for supper. I don't expect much but any BBQ is better than none, so I am looking forward. Now, this is an exercise since I haven't used this smoker to cook before. Trouble is that I have already had two different neighbors ask me when dinner will be ready. If I had planned on feeding the hood, I would have taken the spare ribs out also, but I don't want to cook up a mess and have it come out less than perfect, if the neighbors are going to be participating. You know how the gossip goes around neighborhoods. I'll try to remember to get some photos, but if you've seen one rack of baby backs, you've seen three. I'm more into taste than looks, so I don't mind if mine turn out a bit dark. I had a neighbor over for standing rib roast one day and she thought I burnt it until she tasted it. Bragged to everyone that it was the best she had ever tasted. When I had used my little grill to smoke and did three racks of beef ribs, I had thrown some ribeyes on the grill and when I went in to sit down at the table, they had left me one rib. So, BBQ is something that you always have to buy extra meat if you plan on lighting the smoker up. There will never be enough to go around. How am I supposed to have left overs for a late night snack if I don't ever have left overs?
I should have made this a new thread, but it seemed like it related to this one. Didn't mean/intend on hijacking it.
I have a pork butt and spare ribs in the freezer right now. Wonder which one I should do next. Pork butt will feed a few folks, and I haven't smoked one since I moved to Florida almost three years ago.