Well, the first cook with the newly installed FireBoard Pellet Drive in my MAK 2 Star went great, to my relief! Cooked a rack of good old baby backs. Seasoned them with just S&P, garlic, onion, and a light dust of paprika. Wanted to get a good idea of what kind of smoke color they'd take on, without a sugary and/or over seasoned rub. Pellets were Lumber Jack Competition Blend.
Started by loading the seasoned rack in a cold cooker. I always start my cooks this way to take advantage of the heavy start up smoke. I don't find it to be "dirty smoke", so I figure why waste it. Set it to 180°F and hit Ignite.
After a couple of hours at 180°F, bumped it up to 200°F for an hour, and then another 25°F every hour until a max of 275°F. And spritzed every half hour with 50/50 apple juice/ACV for the rest of the cook. About 3 hours into the cook, it was taking on a nice color.
About 5 hours in, at 175°F internal, I wrapped in foil for about 45-50 minutes until it was 205°F internal. Then made a foil boat out of the wrap, and glazed with a thin brush of Texas Pepper Jelly Rib Candy.
After about 15 minutes in the now 275°F smoker, it was tacked up, and ready to pull. Took on a really nice mahogany color.
Let it cool to 150°F, sliced and plated with some new potato's. Nice deep smoke ring, and had a great bite, and flavor! Clean bones, but still had to use you teeth, which is how I like ribs. Not a fan of fall apart tender. Great batch of ribs!
Super happy with the performance of the PelletDrive. Produces way more smoke than the MAK PelletBoss ever did. Even at the higher temps of 250-275°F, it still cranked out smoke. I don't think I ever looked at the smoker without seeing at least some smoke, and most of the time, it was similar to the last photo, or heavier. With the MAK controller, once you got above 200-225°F the smoke was intermittent, following each pellet dump. It's only a sample of one cook, but I think this Pellet Drive is going to be awesome!
Started by loading the seasoned rack in a cold cooker. I always start my cooks this way to take advantage of the heavy start up smoke. I don't find it to be "dirty smoke", so I figure why waste it. Set it to 180°F and hit Ignite.
After a couple of hours at 180°F, bumped it up to 200°F for an hour, and then another 25°F every hour until a max of 275°F. And spritzed every half hour with 50/50 apple juice/ACV for the rest of the cook. About 3 hours into the cook, it was taking on a nice color.
About 5 hours in, at 175°F internal, I wrapped in foil for about 45-50 minutes until it was 205°F internal. Then made a foil boat out of the wrap, and glazed with a thin brush of Texas Pepper Jelly Rib Candy.
After about 15 minutes in the now 275°F smoker, it was tacked up, and ready to pull. Took on a really nice mahogany color.
Let it cool to 150°F, sliced and plated with some new potato's. Nice deep smoke ring, and had a great bite, and flavor! Clean bones, but still had to use you teeth, which is how I like ribs. Not a fan of fall apart tender. Great batch of ribs!
Super happy with the performance of the PelletDrive. Produces way more smoke than the MAK PelletBoss ever did. Even at the higher temps of 250-275°F, it still cranked out smoke. I don't think I ever looked at the smoker without seeing at least some smoke, and most of the time, it was similar to the last photo, or heavier. With the MAK controller, once you got above 200-225°F the smoke was intermittent, following each pellet dump. It's only a sample of one cook, but I think this Pellet Drive is going to be awesome!
