new to smoking

[wes2898]

Hi everybody my name is Weston. I just bought a char broil horizontal smoker setup. Never smoked anything before tried for the first time yesterday and long story short I over smoked the meat. Using mesquite chips. For an hour our so I couldn't get the temp over 160. Added more Kingsford charcoal. And I'm pretty sure I added way to many chips. I live in Vancouver Washington and I weld for a living. Just wondering the best method to keep the temperature at 200.

 

[scarbelly]

Hello and 

to SMF - good luck with the new smoker 

You might want to take Jeff's 5 day ecourse

 

[smokinhusker]

Hello Weston and welcome to SMF! Mesquite is a pretty strong smoke flavor as is hickory. I have an electric smoker and use only about a 1/4 cup of chips every 1-1.5 hrs. I also cut mesquite and hickory with some apple or cherry. 

 

[wes2898]

Thanks for the advice. After reading a bunch of forums here I finally figured that the smoke needed to be a blue smoke and I tried it again yesterdayi kept the thermometer that came with the grill at 200 but the meat only got up to 140. I had it in there for six hours (mind you it was only a pound pork tenderloin) but I think the thermometer is showing me what the top of the grill is and not by the meat. So I put it in the oven and got it up to 160 still turned out really well for a beginner I think. Is there any thermometer you would recommend me getting that can sit right by the meat.

 

[s2k9k]

A lot of the factory thermometers are not accurate, and temperature is very important. It sounds like your therm is reading higher than it actually is. A 1lb piece of meat should have cooked very fast and not 6 hours. I would recommend a good digital therm, you can get some that have 2 probes, 1 for the meat temp and 1 for the smoker temp, and they also have a remote so you can monitor temps from somewhere else, like inside the house. Here is one that is a well built unit and is very popular:

http://www.amazenproducts.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MAVET-732