First smoke with qviews

[roytyson]

I finally had the chance to do my first smoke on my propane smoker.

Not the best, had lots of challanges and ended with more questions than answers.

My first challange was my temp. Not sure what was going on here, but I could not keep it at my target temp of 280*. I stayed around 260*. After a while I put up a wind break which help with the speed of recovery but I never could get up to my target. Smoke was another issue. I had too much at the begining. I took out the smoking box (which made the temp go up) and moved the foil wrapped wood chunks to the lowest rack, smoke stopped so put everything back. Put sand in the smoke box to try to slow the heat down to the chunks, funky smell came out of smoker, so took that back out. Added corn on the cob (my wife put in fridge after I wrapped them, so they were very cold). Took a while for temp to recover from this. At this point ready to punt the smoker

.

Finally after 4 hrs got my internal temp to 167 and we ate. Not to bad of taste, light smoke flavor (used cherry and apple wood). Family liked the taste, I wanted more smoke falvor.

Anyway here is the pics, if any body can help with some of my issues, that would be appreciated.


http://s629.photobucket.com/albums/u...FIRST%20SMOKE/

 

[mauismokemeats]

That bird looks like it was great, looks juicy and everthing. I have a converted side firebox brinkmann smoker, so not much well no experience with your type of smoker. For the heat source, maybe the fire burner is rated to low on the BTU's to get the smoker hot enough?, mines put out 56,000 btu's, in less than 15 minutes it gets up to 450 deg, that's nice and makes for a quick pre heat, get home, start the fire, rub my meat or what ever and I'm smoking in 1/2 an hour.

For the smoke, I was told to put a juice can over the flames filled and packed tight, but that burned quick, got to much smoke talk about white smoke blowing out???, sheeze, I ended up placeing the filled can of wood packed tight and covered with foil, and only poke a small hole in the middle of the foil and put in in the corner of the firebox just off the fire flames, and that is perfect, starts a little smokey then it gets a real nice thin blue for couple hours. If you can smell smoke it's smoking, if you want heavier smoke add more wood for smoke.

That's with my smoker, maybe some of this can rub off to your type of smoker.

Good luck Braddah...

 

[ronp]

Sorry you had all them temp probs. It will get easier as you go and learn your smoker.



Chicken looks nice and juicy.

I say you did good for your first.

 

[old poi dog]

A couple of weeks ago we had some pretty steady tradewinds blowing and I was having problems with my temps also. I had to break out the wind break and closed the vents towards the bottom of my smoke vault just to stabilize the temps. If you have vents towards the bottom of your smoker,you may want to close em. (I had to bend my tabs so that they could close all the way.) Like Maui said, if you can smell smoke its smoking. Keep at it and don't get discouraged. Thanks for the qview. Chicken looks good!

 

[mballi3011]

The chickens look good but are you sure they are done. It look alittle pinkish to me but it could be the picture. Whats that rub you have there