Hi everyone I had one of my most challenging smokes this weekend so I thought I would share. It started off a normal saturday. I planned to do pork loin and some friends ask for a whole chicken so had 2 of them. The plan was to smoke the loin first at 250 and after it came off I would bump the heat up to 300-325 for the chickens. Nice sunny morning temp was probably around the low 80's. The weatherman said no rain until the night time so I thought I was all set. Well this is where murphy's law started to kick in. I went to light the chimney with balled up paper towels like I usually do with no problem. For some reason today it decided it didn't want to stay lit. I went throught about 10 paper towels before it caught on. (It was not windy at all by the way) so about 10:45 poured into the smoker and added some wood to preheat the smoker. At 11:50 we were all set. Temp was 275 and I put the loin on. 10 min later clouds and thunder began. I quickly tried to put a tent up. As soon as I got it up a nice downpour began. I thought that was a close one...then the wind started blowing which blew the rain sideways to make sure everything including me got soaked. That lasted for about an hr and a half. I have a stick burner so back and forth i went into the rain to keep the fire going. So after it stopped the sun comes out and it now feels like its 95 degrees but I said to myself "we're ok it's just part of the process". The loin finished with no further incidents. I then got the temp up to 350 and put the chickens on. We coasted at 325 for about 40 min then...my maverick decided it had enough. So now I'm stuck with using the mounted thermometer on the door which is pretty much 30-60 degrees off at different parts of the racks. Well just when I thought well, it can't get any worse...my dog, who was hanging out with me outside after the rain stopped, keep going over by my wood pile. So I got up to see what he was doing. I didn't see anything but he was not leaving it alone so I started moving sticks around. I thought I saw something move when I moved some of the sticks near the back of the pile so I called in renforcements...so now the wife, me, and the dog armed with a hose and push broom go back to check it out. I tell her watch my back and tell me if u see anything. I sprayed the hose at the wood pile in different areas and finally when I got on the ground and sprayed parallel under the pile and skunk comes out of the other side. The wife yells "it's a skunk" and runs off! So at this point im not going to get anymore wood until we get this taken care of. During all this I completely forgot about the chickens I look back and i see white smoke everywhere. I open the firebox and it's pretty much out. I also hadn't rotated the meat either so I took it out and the one closer to the firebox is 171 in the breast and 190 in the thighs and the other chicken is 140 in the breast and 168 in the thighs. I said u know what I'm done with this mess today and took them both off and finished the undercooked one in the oven. Today murphy's law got the best of me! Touché smoke gods...Touché
