1st time smoker

[packmann]

this past weekend i smoked my 1st animal. i decieded to do a chicken 1st since it would only cost me around 5 bucks. i was given my 1st smoker by a friend of mine who recently purchased a green egg. thanks to kevin i am now a smoker. he gave me a brinkman brand smoker. only modification i did to it was add a numbered temp gage. i found a rub on youtube that tasted good. i started to cook the chicken. i did cut out the back bone and split the chicken in half. about an 1 1/2 into it the hickory smoked wood chuncks i put into it were gone. now i only soaked the wood chuncks for an hour so that may have been why the burned up quick. i did have to more in now i also had to add more charcoal also but the process did take around 5 hrs. the chicken was excellant, juicey and moist. the only problem was there was almost to smokey. hopefully things will only get better. if anyone has any pointers for a newbe i am always looking for suggestions.

thanks packmann

 

[bbq engineer]

Hey Packmann,

Welcome to the SMF. I think one of the simplist pieces of advice I could give to someone that is new is to not oversmoke your stuff. It is easy to do when you are getting started, and I guarantee all (at least most) of us have been there too. Keep the smoke thin and blue, and you will be fine. Take some pics along the way, we love to see the Qview!

BBQ Eng.

 

[fire it up]

Congrats on your first smoke.
Biggest suggestion I could add would be to brine the bird if you didn't.

 

[bassman]

Welcome to the SMF. There is a lot of good information here. Just stick around and before you know it, you'll be smoking like a pro.

 

[vtanker]

I remember my first smoke. I did a pork roast. I used an entire bag of hickory chunks from wal-mart. It was on a Brinkman electric smoker with water. My tongue was numb for three hours! Remember! Thick white smoke bad! Thin blue smoke good!. One chunk of wet wood an hour or so from a bag should do it.

Welcome and good luck!