I survived the weekend with my first smoke.

[bulldawg66]

A big thanks to all those that helped me over the last few days with my first smoke ever.  I have a mixed emotions but the good news is we didn't have to order pizza.

I followed Scarbelly's guidance on both the ribs and the chicken.  The chicken was nice and moist but tasted pretty much like a rotisserie chicken.  I guess I expected a little more flavor or something.  I did brine the chicken as suggested but I did not put any type of rub on it.  Maybe next time I will also look at an injection kit.

To be fair, the chicken was fairly plain in large part because it was compared to the ribs.  I cooked two slabs of ribs and used two different rubs.  The one on the left was one made by the chain "Sticky Fingers" and the one on the right was Emeril's Pork rub.  Both were good but Emeril's was 5 for 5 in the family voting.'

One issue I had was with the chicken.  At the 2 hour mark I put the ribs in foil and insterted the meat thermometer deep into the breast.  I closed the door and about 15 mins later it was registering 185.  To be safe, I continued to the 3 hour mark and then took the chicken out.  The interesting thing is that I left both probes in the smoker and there was about a 7-9 degree difference between the two probes.  Shouldnt they be almost exactly the same assuming they were close to each other?  More testing to be performed on this scenario.

Anyway, thanks for all the help!

 

 

[rbranstner]

Congrats on the successful smoke. To answer your question on the probes reading different temps. That happens all the time to me. I even started a thread way back when asking opinions on this. I though maybe the meat probe wasn't giving a accurate air temp reading because it was made to be probed into meat and being it wasn't in any meat that it maybe wouldn't give of a accurate reading but that didn't seem to be the case. After some more testing I found that the reason my thermometers weren't reading the same was because they were in different parts of my UDS and until the fire distributed evenly though the fire basket you actually have hot and cold spots on the smoker. I started putting the two probes side by side and when I do that they read pretty much the same. If yours were side by side then maybe you want to do a boil test on both of them and see what they are reading at. Maybe one of the probes will read higher or lower then the other. Just throwing out ideas.

 

[johnnie walker]

Like Ross, said check your thermometers in boiling water. They should read 212* (Boiling point for water). And most smokers have hot and cold spots in them. You will figure out where they are in time.

Glad you took our advice and took some pictures too. The yard bird and the ribs look good!

Just remember this is suppose to be fun and when we make a mistake we eat the evidence.

 

[africanmeat]

First well done on your first smoke .

Ross is right do the taste.

 

[SmokinAl]

Great job on your first smoke!

 

[scarbelly]

Glad it came out good for you. The chicken does need some rub. It helps pick up some smoke too! Now from here on you have a basic plan to fall back on and one you know will work. Qview looks great 

 

[venture]

Good looking smoke!

Unless those therms were right next to each other, some differences would be expected in most units.

Good luck and good smoking.

 

[mballi3011]

Well you have made it and now you can keep the thin blue smoke flowing. Smoke on my son.