First smoke on new Landmann

[fishinfarmer]

Well, I did my first smoke on my new Landmann yesterday.  Started out behind the house under the pecan trees, chipping up a few limbs to use in the smoker.  We had guests coming over so for supper at 6, so I put a rack of spare ribs on at dinner (or lunch...sorry, I'm from GA

),  put on a roaster chicken at 2, foiled the ribs at 3 and put on some Dutch's Baked Beans, unfoiled the ribs at 5.  I was hoping I'd have everything ready around 6, but it didn't quite work out.  The ribs were ready, the beans were ready, but the big roaster wasn't.  I turned the smoker to high and had it ready at 6:30, not too bad.  I was only able to take 3 pics:

The ribs ready to go on.  I used Grillmates Pork Rub, and went a little light since we had a we had two new mothers who didn't want anything to spicy.

The new smoker in action.  I was very pleased!

The ribs ready to be sliced.  I was gonna try to take some pics of the finished product, but I was already running behind.

I was very pleased with everything, especially the flavor, just a couple of problems though.  For one, the ribs were not as tender as I'd hoped, definitely not fall off the bone.  Also, the skin on the chicken was rubbery, but I'm assuming that was from cooking slowly.  I smoked between 225-240 the whole time, except the last 30 min to try to speed it up I went to about 310.  The baked beans were very very good, and Mama fixed some homemade fries...lots of compliments on everything.

One more side note, I think that roaster chickens are the way to go for the smoker...lots of meat, tender, juicy, yum yum!

Thanks for looking, any suggestions to fix my problems would be appreciated.

 

[adiochiro3]

Did you use the 3-2-1 method for the ribs?  Foiling at the right time helps with the fall-off-the-bone tenderness.  Smoking whole birds is the only way to go, IMHO!  Nice first run with all of the new gear!!!

 

[fishinfarmer]

Sorry if my posts seem a little disjointed, we've got a new 3 week old baby thats been really fussy lately, so sometimes I don't hardly know which end is up.

Yes, adiochirio, I did use the 321 method, that's why I was disappointed that they didn't turn out as tender as I'd hoped.  Looking at some more qview on here, I've noticed that none of the meat on my ribs was pulling back from the bone.  Does that mean I needed to cook them a little longer?

 

[bassman]

You probably need to check you thermometer on the smoker.  They are usually not correct in which case you may have been smoking at a lower temp than you thought.  A way to check your thermometer is by doing the boiling water test.  This link should help. http://www.csgnetwork.com/h2oboilcalc.html

 

[fishinfarmer]

Bassman, I used a probe thermometer stuck thru a potato on the same rack as the ribs.  It is dead on on the boiling water test.  The thermometer on the front of the smoker is about 25 degrees off.

 

[Bearcarver]

Great looking ribs.

Keep trying---I keep changing things too, and I get plenty of pull back, but I don't usually get as close to falling off the bone as I'd like.

As they often say "It's all good though".

Bear

 

[fpnmf]

Good job on the first smoke. It will get better.

The lunch,dinner,supper thing can be tedious here.

I am from NY she is from S Ga. (Albany)

I say dinner is on the table for the evening meal.

She says the evening meal at home is supper. If dining out it's called dinner.

She does show up tho when dinner time is called. hahahahaha