Heat issues on first smoke

[younggun]

Ok so I did my first smoke ever last weekend and it turned out great, but drove me insane. I did a rack of ribs as I understood it to be about the easiest meat to smoke. I got the smoke ring, the flavor was good and they were very tender. My problem lies with my temperature control.

The temp would spike up and down super easy and it was ruff to get it to hang at 230 where I wanted it. I have a char-broil with a smoke box on the side and I used cherry chunks and ended up putting in some charcoal to try and help but it didn't do much to help the situation. Also I'll be honest to the fact that I played with both dampers a lot trying to get it to stabelize. It was also a tad windy that day.

I have done some reading here on the subject and I understand that maybe I should open the exhaust all the way and just mess with the intake. Also I understand it may help if I preburn the wood.

So here are my questions. Would it make a difference if I used logs instead of chunks? Should I preburn? Should I try smoking inside the barn to keep the wind down? Does anyone have any other ideas?

BTW...I smoked them for about 3 hours and finished them in the oven wrapped in foil for 2 hours at 225 to finish them with an internal temp of 180.

Here are 2 pictures of how it turned out.

image.jpg

• younggun
• Apr 7, 2013

image.jpg

• younggun
• Apr 7, 2013

 

[younggun]

I forgot to add that I am going to be smoking again for my fiancé's family next weekend and will prob be doing about 10 racks of ribs. If anyone has any advice on smokin that much at once that would also be great.

Thanks
Brian

 

[pgsmoker64]

Hi Brian,

Not sure how much research you've done on the CG w/ SFB like you have but there is a laundry list of modifications you could make to help you with your temp control issues.

I started just using a charcoal grill and using the indirect method but my first smoker was a CG w/ SFB just like yours.

First, I use charcoal with wood only for the smoke.  Ash collecting in the bottom will kill your temperatures so be sure to keep your ash pan dumped.  Try to do something to raise your coal bed off of the bottom, the best thing to do is build a charcoal basket.  

You should only use your intake vent to control temps and leave the outlet vent wide open.  At times your intake will not be large enough to give you the airflow you need and it helps to crack open the ash vent at times.  You will have a natural hot spot next to the fire box, it helps to put some type of plate over that so that you can more evenly distribute the heat.  I also started putting a pan of water under the grate next the the SFB to help control temps.

For your 10 rack smoke...start early!  With babybacks you should be able to do about 4 racks at a time.  Using the 2-2-1 method it should take about 5 hours per 4 racks, so you are looking at 15 hours to do 10 racks.  Or you could buy some rib racks at Lowe's and stand them up on the sides, that may help you do all 10 at the same time, but still figure on 5 hours at least, longer to get all the wrapping and unwrapping done.  

2-2-1 Method:

2 hours on the smoker

2 hours wrapped in foil - add some apple juice or lay ribs on top of brown sugar, a squeeze of liquid Parkay, and squeeze of honey)

1 hour back on the smoker without foil

Good luck and be sure to keep asking questions for whatever you need!

Bill