New to smoking in NC

Welcome to the site and congratulations on that great looking smoker.  It is a little confusing in your description of lighting your snake as to whether you lit both ends of the snake?

I use the snake often in my Weber kettle and have no trouble keeping temps down but I light only one end of the snake.  If you light all of your coals at once you will likely have more trouble keeping your temps down.

Did you start shutting down your vents early on as your smoker temps were climbing?   It can be difficult with many smokers to get temps back down if you let your fire build up too big a bed of lit coals and a well built smoker made from heavy gauge metal, will hold high heat a long time.

I would be taking too large a guess as to speculate on your "too much smoke flavor" problem especially considering that you didn't use any wood.  That can be caused by a large bed of coals damped down to the point that they are smoldering but that's a wild guess on my part.

Chicken is a good choice for the learning process.  I would keep on trying chicken till I learned about the smoker.

Here's a picture of a typical snake the way I set them up in my kettle.  I use a small size Weber chimney and usually light 10 to 15 briquettes to start the snake.  This looks like more lit briquettes because I used small used coals in the chimney.

Best luck with your beautiful new smoker. 

Good looking ribs. 

I wrapped ribs through the first 4 or 5 times that I smoked them and then gave up on wrapping.  I would suggest that you reduce the amount of time you leave the ribs wrapped rather than reducing the unwrapped time.  Steaming in the foil is the fastest portion of the cook.

What I usually do is keep my smoker temp as close to the 225 - 250 range as possible, put the ribs on and don't even peek in there for 4 hours.  (This method is for Baby Backs).   At that point I will start checking done-ness by probing the meat between the bones and start mopping with sauce,  (If I have decided that I want to sauce).

The probe test is a learned method and so you want to start testing early ion the cook.  Meat not yet done will have a fair amount of resistance to the probe and as the meat becomes closer to done the probe will go in with lessening resistance.  When it is done there will be almost no resistance.  (Similar to probing warm butter).

Temp control is different with each smoker but early control is key.  I would suggest that you start closing your draft,  (Air intake), when your smoke chamber hits 175* and just keep an eye on it.  the idea is to "sneak up" on your goal temp.  If you find that you have stalled the temp simply open the draft a bit.  I try to leave the vent, (Exhaust), fully open but some cookers will not work that way.

I have found that bone pull back will vary from rack to rack.  The probe test for done is a very good one but another is a bend test in which you lift one end of the rack with your tongs and look for at least a 45 degree "droop" in your rack.  (It will be a pretty pronounced bend right beyond the end of the tongs).

Best luck on your next smoke.  Let us know how it goes.

therapy said:

 
Ok...So I'm addicted....I'm at it again. (Ribs)....Following your snake method pictured above (lighting one end of the snake) and its working perfectly for controlling my temps.  Trying some apple and peach chunks staggered like above.  Not sure how many to use (trying two baseball sized chunks) because the coals give off a bit off smoke flavor....Trail and error right?

I like things spicy so I used he above seasonings and added some cayenne and paprika 

Click to expand...

Good to hear that the snake is working out for you.  I hope your rib smoke came out perfect. 

Nice ribs therapy!     I like your style!

Mike

Perfect is hard to beat.  Time for the next round, right?