An Update; I’ve smoked meat 3 times now; baby back ribs twice and a pork butt today. I followed the 3-2-1 recipe for the ribs and I found a good recipe for the pork butt. Everything has tasted fantastic. I’m taking the 2nd batch of ribs and the pulled pork camping in a few days. Sorry I forgot to take pictures until today.
I struggled the first time using the smoker. The temperature kept swinging up and down. Plus I was adding wood chips every 20 – 30 minutes. I read a few articles about changing the chip tray to a cast iron fry pan so I tried that for the 2nd run. That helped some with the temperature swings and it slowed down the wood chip replacement. For the 3rd run I worked in some wood chucks and moved the smoker so the breeze wasn’t impacting the smoker as much. This 3rd run was better but it was a long day none the less. Another thing that helped a lot was using the Inkbird Bluetooth BBQ Thermometer IBT-4XS (
https://inkbird.com/products/bluetooth-grill-thermometer-ibt-4xs). Using this helped me keep an eye on the temps. It has 4 channels that I can see on my phone. I’m a homebrewer and this popped up on one of the deal websites for a great price ($29) so I bought it before I had my smoker. I’m glad I did.
I’m not sure what’s next for me, I’d like to try chicken wings and then a turkey. But I’ll be doing more ribs, that’s for sure.