- May 3, 2017
- 3
- 10
Hey y'all;
I'm new to the smoking world, having never really had enough patience before now. haha.
As I get older, Smarter, Wiser, I find that I enjoy my time in the back yard enough to add this pleasure to it.
I picked-up a used offset smoker that belonged to my father-in-law. He said it was a good unit, and he's sort of the "real deal" cowboy, so I took his word for it. :-)
There's no real identifying marks on it, that I can find, so here's a photo of it.
I got it on Saturday, and I've used it twice so far. Saturday I tried a Brisket in it. It was about a 3.5lb cut. I struggled to keep the heat under 300. I had the air vent on the firebox closed completely and it still stayed well above 300 most of the time. So after 3 hrs, I wrapped the brisket in foil and cooked it for another hour. It was tasty... but very tough. So I put it back in. By then the sun was down, and I couldn't get the temp to come back up to over 150. ::sigh::
So Monday evening I threw some chicken on. I didn't count, but there were probably close to 30 chicken thighs I put on. Maybe 15lbs? The temp regulated BEAUTIFULLY. It was awesome. about the 3-1/2 hr mark, I popped the lid and discoverd there's a definite pattern to the heat: the left-rear (side closest to the firebox) is more hot, and cools as it moves to the right-front. The chicken in the left-rear was at 190d, so I took it out and moved some other pieces to that area of the grill. The temp dropped drastically while I had the lid open, obviously, but from that moment on, I couldn't get the temp back up over 180. The sun was down and it was cooler outside.
I'm starting with chunk-charcoal, and then once it's good and red, I add some hickory chunks I bought at Lowes. As it needs more fuel, I just add more wood chunks. I'm probably doing this wrong?
I'm looking forward to learning a lot from y'all. And Thanks in Advance!
I'm new to the smoking world, having never really had enough patience before now. haha.
As I get older, Smarter, Wiser, I find that I enjoy my time in the back yard enough to add this pleasure to it.
I picked-up a used offset smoker that belonged to my father-in-law. He said it was a good unit, and he's sort of the "real deal" cowboy, so I took his word for it. :-)
There's no real identifying marks on it, that I can find, so here's a photo of it.
I got it on Saturday, and I've used it twice so far. Saturday I tried a Brisket in it. It was about a 3.5lb cut. I struggled to keep the heat under 300. I had the air vent on the firebox closed completely and it still stayed well above 300 most of the time. So after 3 hrs, I wrapped the brisket in foil and cooked it for another hour. It was tasty... but very tough. So I put it back in. By then the sun was down, and I couldn't get the temp to come back up to over 150. ::sigh::
So Monday evening I threw some chicken on. I didn't count, but there were probably close to 30 chicken thighs I put on. Maybe 15lbs? The temp regulated BEAUTIFULLY. It was awesome. about the 3-1/2 hr mark, I popped the lid and discoverd there's a definite pattern to the heat: the left-rear (side closest to the firebox) is more hot, and cools as it moves to the right-front. The chicken in the left-rear was at 190d, so I took it out and moved some other pieces to that area of the grill. The temp dropped drastically while I had the lid open, obviously, but from that moment on, I couldn't get the temp back up over 180. The sun was down and it was cooler outside.
I'm starting with chunk-charcoal, and then once it's good and red, I add some hickory chunks I bought at Lowes. As it needs more fuel, I just add more wood chunks. I'm probably doing this wrong?
I'm looking forward to learning a lot from y'all. And Thanks in Advance!
