Hey everyone. I finished the basic mods and curing and tested the waters this weekend. I would say it was a success for the first stab at it. I did some chicken breast with different seasonings and rubs.
I had some problems with the heat as to be expected. It was hard to maintain anything over 200 for more than what felt like minutes. I burned through my whole bag of charcoal (I have extra propane tanks in case the gas grill goes out – not sure why I didn’t have more charcoal). Anyways I smoked the chicken for maybe two hours, and couldn’t get it above 140, was out of fuel so threw them on the grill for a few minutes to finish them off.
Because I wasn’t sure of the first results this was practice and wasn’t a planned dinner. The neighbors were over drinking with us and we just snacked on them as the night went on. Everyone really liked the chicken and the smoke flavor was perfect. They even stayed pretty moist.
So I’ll keep trying things and attempting to get the heat worked out. I’ll have to do do anything worth wild and requiring hours and hours of good heat.
Any suggestions or thoughts would be appreciated. (More charcoal, different baffle, seal the lid, more air/less air, etc.)
Here are a few pics of the smoker and the chicken. Nothing is plated up fancy on this one but I'll get there.
I had some problems with the heat as to be expected. It was hard to maintain anything over 200 for more than what felt like minutes. I burned through my whole bag of charcoal (I have extra propane tanks in case the gas grill goes out – not sure why I didn’t have more charcoal). Anyways I smoked the chicken for maybe two hours, and couldn’t get it above 140, was out of fuel so threw them on the grill for a few minutes to finish them off.
Because I wasn’t sure of the first results this was practice and wasn’t a planned dinner. The neighbors were over drinking with us and we just snacked on them as the night went on. Everyone really liked the chicken and the smoke flavor was perfect. They even stayed pretty moist.
So I’ll keep trying things and attempting to get the heat worked out. I’ll have to do do anything worth wild and requiring hours and hours of good heat.
Any suggestions or thoughts would be appreciated. (More charcoal, different baffle, seal the lid, more air/less air, etc.)
Here are a few pics of the smoker and the chicken. Nothing is plated up fancy on this one but I'll get there.
