Hello everyone. New to the site and just beginning to get into charcoal smokers. I'm in South Carolina and my name is Travis. I just got a Oklahoma Joe Longhorn offset smoker. I did some reading on this site and successfully seasoned the smoker using charcoal and peanut oil along with a 4hr break in cook time.
The next day I fired it up again and tried my newbie luck with smoking some wings and corn. I found I immediately had a challenge keeping the temp between 275-300 degrees. After getting the unit leveled out at 300 degrees, I began putting the wings in the smoker area. After closing the lid, my temp recovered to 225 and that was it. I kept at it and eventually had to open the stack all the way and also the firebox vent all the way. Gave it 30 mins to react and it came up to 240 degrees. So I added a another load of charcoal and finally got 'er going! I read elsewhere cook time would be about 2 hrs at 275-300 degrees. Since I struggled with low temps, I had to extend my cook time to 4 hrs. Even after 4 hrs the wings came out pretty tough. Both the skin and the meat. The wings were done and tasted great - just tough. Any suggestions? Thanks for your time. I look forward to learning!
The next day I fired it up again and tried my newbie luck with smoking some wings and corn. I found I immediately had a challenge keeping the temp between 275-300 degrees. After getting the unit leveled out at 300 degrees, I began putting the wings in the smoker area. After closing the lid, my temp recovered to 225 and that was it. I kept at it and eventually had to open the stack all the way and also the firebox vent all the way. Gave it 30 mins to react and it came up to 240 degrees. So I added a another load of charcoal and finally got 'er going! I read elsewhere cook time would be about 2 hrs at 275-300 degrees. Since I struggled with low temps, I had to extend my cook time to 4 hrs. Even after 4 hrs the wings came out pretty tough. Both the skin and the meat. The wings were done and tasted great - just tough. Any suggestions? Thanks for your time. I look forward to learning!
