Newbie in Philly!

[tangfj]

Hey guys, I've been lurking around these boards for a while and decided to join after my first butt!

I have a Charbroil Red three burner grill and I just got a MES40 from Sam's.  I've never really tried smoking anything before except for the one time I tried to smoke some ribs in my grill, which didn't turn out great... which is why I decided to go out and get an electric smoker that my wife luckily let me get!

Anyway, on to my first butt... after reading through many posts (especially the sticky about smoking a butt) and reading many books, I decided to put my MES40 to use.  I've had it for three days and so far I've smoked chicken drumsticks and thighs, a half rack of ribs (to test), and a butt using the method from the sticky.

On to the pictures!

Just starting 30 mins in...

Finished product... bone fell right out. Not much bark to speak of.

Notes:

Butt:

The meat from this butt is very tender and moist but I didn't get too much of a bark. 

Steps I used:

I did the entire smoek at about 230-240 degrees...  

1. Rubbed meat with mustard and then dry rub mix and let rest for about 12 hours
2. Started fat cap up at about 1pm (started late because of morning rain)
3. About every hour I opened the smoker up and basted and sprayed with some apple cider mix
4. At about the 3rd hour (140 degrees) flipped it fat cap down to hopefully produce more bark
5. At about 9pm, meat finally got to 165 degrees
6. Foiled and finished it in the oven (b/c it started raining last night)
7. At about 2:30am, meat got to 199 degrees so I took it out, put in in a big zip lock bag, wrapped it in a towel and stored in a cooler
8. This morning around 11am, I took it out and put my finishing sauce on and that's what you see above in my finished product

I think next time I may just do fat cap down the entire time and hopefully get a better bark.  Any recommendations on how to get a nice dark bark?  I see other people's pics and see how dark their bark is... how do you guys get it so dark and crispy on the outside? Do you take the foil off at 185-190 and finish it off without the foil?

Ribs:

Along with my butt I decided to try making a half rack of ribs (the other ribs are in the fridge waiting for this weekend)... I wanted to try making ribs/butt at least once before the weekend came when I have people coming over.  I don't have pics of my ribs (forgot) but I tried using the 3-2-1 method of smoking from this site (http://wyntk.us/3-2-1-rib-method)... 3 hours unfoiled, 2 hours foiled, and 1 hour unfoiled again to finish off.  Anyway, my ribs ended up I think way overcooked.  I mean the ribs did taste really good but you could tell they were overcooked because you could see almost the probably 1 to 2/3rds of the bone between the ribs.  I think next time I'm going to try 2-2-1 or maybe even 2-1-1.  For reference I'm using pork loin back ribs from Sam's.

Some questions about ribs.

Are pork loin back ribs the same as baby backs?  They aren't spare ribs right?  I wasn't sure which ones to get... I know I didn't want the spare ribs so elected to get whatever else they had.

When I was prepping the ribs, I wasn't able to find any sheething on the back of my ribs... do pork loin back ribs have much sheathing?  Either way, the finished product you couldn't tell either way. the meat wasn't tough at all. 

I've rubbed my ribs with some dry rub already, now when I put them in the smoker, do I need to baste them every hour just like a butt? or do I just let them be for the first increment of hours?

Should I monitor them with a temp probe or just keep watching them until I can see about 1/4 inch of the ribs poke out before I foil?

When you foil the ribs do you put any liquid in the foil to help braise them?

Does anyone have any easier methods of doing ribs?

Thanks!  This forum has really helped me to get started!  I can't wait to do my next butt!  Please chime in with suggestions!

 

[scarbelly]

Hello and 

to SMF - looks like the butt turned out great

I have deleted all of the duplicate posts for you- until you get to about 20 posts, anything with a picture or a quote will be held by the software for moderator review. Please be patient - we get to most of them in under 4 hours

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[tangfj]

Thanks!  Good to know about moderator review...

 

[jrod62]

:welcome1: to SMF .
Food looks great :drool

 

[rtbbq2]

Great looking first smoke on your MES40...