Hello guys, FNG Here.

[smokin shelby]

Hey everyone,

I've been reading this forum for quite a while. People call me hillbilly because of my accent and location. Little bit of background, I'm a BBQ nut. I've traveled the entire country from coast to coast, up and down from north to South (notice I capitalized South, lol, ), and have eaten BBQ at every diner, drive in and dive that I have come across. I love a BBQ joint more than anything. Being from the southeast, pork is king in my world and I love it. Family friends of ours have a BBQ joint that has been cranking out BBQ for 6 decades or more and passed down to various family members who still run it. I've been eating it for 4 decades or more and I love it. I always compare others from around the country to it, and it just doesn't meet my expectations ( a little short sighted, but it is what it is for my taste buds, lol).

I have recently decided to take up smoking meat. Been thinking about it for quite a while, just had never acted on it. I found an old ECB (and I mean OLD, IIRC it has Sportsman Smoker on it) in a shed at my grand mother's house . Modded it a little with a new temp gauge and tried smoking a chuck roast for the first time. I've got pics and details from that but I don't know if the forums will let me post them yet.

It was pretty good, but after reading the forums here I decided to start looking for a newer smoker. Being a beginner, the GOSM big block was deeper than I wanted to get into it until I got more experience. I ended up buying the GOSM 3405 BGW from wally world. They had it for $139 at the time and I figured it would be a good starting point to experiment. I got it a few weeks ago and did my first smoke yesterday (5lb pork butt) have detailed pics and notes from that as well, hopefully this forum will let me post them soon because I could use help.

I guess that's all for now, hope to get to know you guys better. I feel like like I already know some of you after doing so much reading on here.

I'll try to post threads on my first attempts in the appropriate place with pics if the forum will let me without thinking I'm some kind of spammer. I've got them all hosted on photobucket and don't need to use the bandwidth that this site offers. Maybe it will work out.

Thanks for the info I have gotten from you guys,

Just call me hillbilly, everyone else does, I'm not offended.

 

[smokin shelby]

I guess I should add that I seasoned it a few days ago. It was 70 degrees and raining, and with the top vent wide open 240* was the lowest I could get it (that was according to a digital probe that I had checked the night before in boiling water).

When I did my first pork butt yesterday it was 90+* outside and even with the top vent fully open it fluctuated between 270 and 280. I didn't get as much smoke flavor as I wanted. I was using the heavy gauge wood box that came with it. I could smell the smoke, but only saw it coming out of the flue a couple of times. Even when I would open the door the smoke would be really light. I think what was happening was that the smoke was light, and with the high temps the smoke wasn't lingering in the chamber long enough. It was quickly going straight out the top that I had open to keep the temp down.

I've read about using a bread pan for the wood on here, I'll try that next time. I've also read about using a needle valve to lower the flame, I ordered one from bayou classics earlier tonight.

I wanted to pull the butt I smoked, and after reading posts here I waited for it to get up over 200 before I took it out. I've got a full write up with pics, but I just tried to do one of my earlier smokes and after 30 minutes of annoying pop ups, it finally timed out and I lost it all. Don't know if I'm going to bother with transferring it here after that.

Maybe I'll have more patience later to put it together. I've got all my pics hosted on photobucket which I thought would make it easier, but it seemed to make it harder.
 

 

[chef jimmyj]

Welcome to the SMF Family...You may be a Hillbilly but that is one Damn Fine 'Stang runnin' them Mountain Roads! Now for Smoke...DON'T MESS WITH IT! If you are smelling and seeing Thin Blue Smoke...You're Golden! As far as smoke flavor, lower temps from the needle valve and water for the first half of the cook will take care of that, giving longer and better smoke penetration. After a couple dozen posts you will be able to load your stuff without a hold. Pop-ups can be turned off by becoming a Premier Member for $15 a Year...Well worth putting a stop to that aggravation!...JJ

 

[s2k9k]

Hi Hillbilly! 

to SMF!!! We're happy you found us! You've come to the right place, we have over 40,000 members and over 800,000 posts so you should be able to find almost anything you want to know. Remember the search bar at the top can be your best friend for finding answers fast!

You might want to check out Jeff's Free 5 day E-course it will teach you all the basics and a whole lot more!

 

[scarbelly]

Hello and 

to SMF - glad to have you here

 

[smokin shelby]

Welcome to the SMF Family...You may be a Hillbilly but that is one Damn Fine 'Stang runnin' them Mountain Roads! Now for Smoke...DON'T MESS WITH IT! If you are smelling and seeing Thin Blue Smoke...You're Golden! As far as smoke flavor, lower temps from the needle valve and water for the first half of the cook will take care of that, giving longer and better smoke penetration. After a couple dozen posts you will be able to load your stuff without a hold. Pop-ups can be turned off by becoming a Premier Member for $15 a Year...Well worth putting a stop to that aggravation!...JJ

Thanks! I'll start a thread in the Pork section later to go into more detail about what I did and the outcome. This one was really just an experiment to get some notes and learn what to do and not to do in the future.

And by pop-ups, I worded that wrong. I meant dialogue boxes that kept popping up. I was trying to copy and paste here from where I had written it all out with pics previously. When I'd try to paste my text into my post another box would pop up and I'd have to paste it in it, then it would go into my post. Same with the pics, I'd hit the insert image and another box would pop up to put the link and choose a size. Then something happened when I was almost finished and I lost it all, lol. Just my luck, haha. I'll get it together when I get more familiar with this forum.

 

[smokin shelby]

Hi Hillbilly! 

to SMF!!! We're happy you found us! You've come to the right place, we have over 40,000 members and over 800,000 posts so you should be able to find almost anything you want to know. Remember the search bar at the top can be your best friend for finding answers fast!

You might want to check out Jeff's Free 5 day E-course it will teach you all the basics and a whole lot more!

Thanks! Yeah, I'm quite familiar with the search bar. I've been wearing it out for about 3 months on here reading and trying to learn as much as I could, just hadn't joined yet. I seem to procrastinate a little, lol.

 

[smokin shelby]

Hello and 

to SMF - glad to have you here

Thanks! I hope to learn more and be able to share some as well.

 

[s2k9k]

Thanks! I'll start a thread in the Pork section later to go into more detail about what I did and the outcome. This one was really just an experiment to get some notes and learn what to do and not to do in the future.

And by pop-ups, I worded that wrong. I meant dialogue boxes that kept popping up. I was trying to copy and paste here from where I had written it all out with pics previously. When I'd try to paste my text into my post another box would pop up and I'd have to paste it in it, then it would go into my post. Same with the pics, I'd hit the insert image and another box would pop up to put the link and choose a size. Then something happened when I was almost finished and I lost it all, lol. Just my luck, haha. I'll get it together when I get more familiar with this forum.

Yep that's just how it works here, a little annoying but you get used to it!

 

[rabbithutch]

Howdy, SS!

:welcome1: to SMF!

I know what you mean about the Q you grew up on being the bar by which all other is measured.

 

[smokin shelby]

Howdy, SS!

to SMF!
I know what you mean about the Q you grew up on being the bar by which all other is measured.

Thanks for the welcome. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about, the first BBQ I ever had came from there as a toddler barely big enough to eat it and it has stuck with me.

I'm gonna try to post a pic of my set up just for no other reason than to let the mods know that I'm not some freaky deaky horse porn spammer, lol.

This is from the other day when I fired it up for the first time and was seasoning it.

3eb82030.jpg

• smokin shelby
• Aug 19, 2012

 

[smokinhusker]

Hello and welcome to SMF!

 

[smokin shelby]

Needle valve came in today from Bayou Classics. Have to say I'm really impressed with how fast it got here, they seem to be a good outfit to deal with. Now I need to make a trip to the hardware store and get some fittings to adapt it to my regulator and hose (They're 1/8 and the needle valve is 1/4) May try to do that here shortly so I can test it out tonight. Might try to smoke something tomorrow, thinking about a rack of ribs.

Also, been reading the Ecourse all week.
 

 

[smokin shelby]

Needle valve installed, tested it to see how adjustable the flame was, pleased so far. I'll get the thermometer out tomorrow and see what kind of temps I can get with it.

f55365e1.jpg

• smokin shelby
• Aug 23, 2012

 

[smokin shelby]

Got a very small leak around the factory hose that used to screw into the regulator, but now goes into the fitting I bought to adapt the valve. Got some thread compound today, going to take it back apart  and retry it tomorrow. //


















 

 

[smokin shelby]

Finally got around to fixing my leak. Checked it today and everything is good now, no leaks. Local grocery that always has great meat has Boston butts on sale this week for $1.49lb and spare ribs for $1.69, gonna go pick up some of both tomorrow.
 

 

[rabbithutch]

Great prices on the meat!

Don't forget the Qview!

 

[schmedleyp]

Welcome to the Forum!

 

[smokin shelby]

I just saw some guy on foodnetwork (in passing)  that is supposedly a bbq guru in Texas and he said that taking the membrane off of St. Louis style spare ribs dries them out and shouldn't be done. Any thoughts on that?

No offense to people in Texas, but everybody I know there thinks that beef is king, brisket,  beef ribs, etc. and the ones I know have little or no knowledge of pork (which I consider king of BBQ).  Any opinions of this?

Let the arguments begin.