Remember your first attempt at smoking?

[guvna]

i remember watching "good eats" years ago and alton brown was using foil packets all over the place. i decided that; i could do that. i had been using a gas grill for everything at the time so i made up some foil packets went to town. all i got was a few puffy clouds and some over-cooked meats.

additionally, the propane element burned holes in the tin-foil - not good. any-hoo, i thought it would be funny to hear some other stories. got one?

 

[blue]

About 10 years ago I was given a gift vertificate to the Home Depot so I picked up an ECB and decided to smoke some babybacks. I just assumed that I knew what I was doing because I saw my father do it when I was a kid. I thew every piece of wood I could find on my property onto the fire trying to get that temp gauge into the "ideal" area. Didn't find out until a few hours lated that that temp gauage was unreliable. When I finally took the ribs off, they were charred beyond being edible. Ended up ordering pizza that night.

Didn't try again for a good 6 years.

 

[northern greenhorn]

I just started to smoke meats, and I just did my first smoke last week, some baby backs, using the 2,2,1 the turned out great... but I remember doing my first beer can chicken, I saw someone on the food network doing this, but I didn't catch it from the begining, and didn't know to cook on indirect heat, suffice to say, we had to order out that night.

 

[jd08]

About 20 years ago I cooked brisket on an ECB using hickory chunks in place of charcoal. I had gotten them started and when they were glowing coals when I tossed on the brisket. It was a bit too tough and turned me off smoking for a while.

If only there had been an Internet back then.

 

[scubadoo97]

Yeah I was sent to the principles office

I also remember my first time smoking meat. An electric vertical water smoker. Just didn't have the techniques down. That was before internet and forums. When that smoker finally rusted out I never replaced it until recently. Now with the shared knowledge from folks here at other boards you can get great advice which makes your ability to succeed so much greater

 

[Bearcarver]

I remember (at 13 years old) riding my bike a couple miles from home, to a covered bridge. I lit up & smoked one of my Dad's Camels. I fell off my bike about 3 times on the way home, until it wore off!

I can't remember enough of the first time I tried to smoke meat. All I know is it wasn't pretty!


Bearcarver

 

[uncle_lar]

I had done indirect cooking for years on my weber genesis grill, doing ribs ect. but the first thing I did on my GOSM was a small brisket and I cooked it too fast and didnt use a thermo on it. it tasted great but was tough as shoe leather. my next brisket after joining this wonderful forum took 16 hours and turned out fabulous.

 

[mgwerks]

It was almost 30 years ago, but I can remember it like it was last weekend (of course my memory is so shot I can't remember last weekend!). I had been givena small stickburner offset and had only been using it as a grill, so I decided to try the smoking thing. I got a big ol' brisket, and slapped it on the raco, then built a fire in the firebox. Plenty of charcoal and lighter fluid to get it going. It wasn't smoking much in my smoker, so I gatheree a bunch of sycamore green deadfall and uset that to make all the nice white smoke.

I stayed up with it all night - it was the worst-tasting piece of crap I ever saw! Well, not too bad except for the bitter creosote bark, and the flavor which permeated the whole thing.

Sigh... Live and learn (a lot!).

 

[tybo6]

My first smoke was about 2 yrs ago.I came across an old new braunfels horiz.and thought what the hell.I packed the fire box full of black jack oak and slapped on two slabs of ribs.I WAS SMOKIN!!!!!!!!!!!!...alot of smoke temp gauge didnt work but,what the hell.I am a man I GOT THIS!!!!!!......Had to admit to wife,,,,,,,,Yeah order pizza....lol.Thanks to this place I now have friends beggin me to do briskets,ribs,fatty's and turkey's for the holidays....I am about to move up to a much bigger trailer mounted smoker...SMOKE ON!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[got14u]

Yep I think I even inhaled once...but boy was I cool

I do remember my first smoke on a horizontal and I did a brisket...Man did I get that white smoke a billowing out of it for about 8 hours or so...I remember at one point smoke wasn't coming out and I rushed out to fix that problem..lol..My mom and step dad where over for dinner of course my mom "well it's pretty good." the dad "pretty strong flavor for me" I had used mesquite the whole time...I drowned it in bbq sauce just to get it down my self....wish I had the internet back then

 

[bcfishman]

I bought an ECB at a garage sale for a buck. Took it home and sanded it and gave it its own fresh coat of paint.

Decided to smoke some fish as my first smoke endeavor.

I looked like I had a da mn tire fire going on inside of there.

There was more white smoke then anyone knew what to do with.

Id pull the lid off, cough, hack, eyes would water, wait to see the fish and then put it back on.

Fish actually tasted decent as I like my fish with a good amount of smoke flavor.

Anyhow, that was the norm for a while... As much smoke as I could get, the better.

Now people say... "It doesnt look like much smoke is coming out of there. You may want to check it." I just laugh.

 

[gnubee]

I almost hate to tell you this but my first smoke turned out wonderfully. It was under the watchful eye of an elderly native gentleman in the Queen Charlotte islands. He showed me how to make a really nice brine for some Pink salmon I had caught. We cut them up in large chunks and placed them on racks in a huge smoke house. It was at least a 500 sq foot shack with many many poles and some racks for the salmon We also split some of the salmon and rigged them each up on a forked piece of willow branch. for a smaller smoker made out of cement and rocks. We carefully built a hot fire about 20 feet from the rock chamber and added some green alder chunks for the smoke. The smoke was then channeled thru a long long pipe into the smokehouse so that by the time it got to the fish it was quite cool.

Man that salmon was good. He also showed me how to do some pretty decent Candied smoked salmon in the Lil Chief smoker using green alder.
Sadly I no longer have that Candied recipe.

 

[deltadude]

Smoking Meats...
First time was like 1980, on my weber kettle, smoked Bonita fish. Bonita is a real strong flavored fish, most people don't like it. However I had caught 3 or 4 and had about 15 lbs of fish, in my Calif Salt Water Fishing book it said Bonita was really good when smoked dry. So I went to the library (no internet or SMF then) and read up on smoking fish. Made a brine, smoked all the Bonita. It was a big hit at work, so good I could have sold it by the piece. I did a few other smoked fish and some ribs but that was about it until about 10 years ago and then started doing pulled pork, brisket and ribs of course, all on the weber kettle (what a chore and constant temp battle). Finally bought a smoker 2 years ago.

 

[coyote-1]

Mine was just after we got our house 12 years ago. My Dad gave me a housewarming gift of a Weber 22.5" kettle - and the dealer had thrown in a bag of mesquite chips. I'd had barbeque so I knew the deal; I immediately set it up for indirect grilling as per the included instructions. Th first set of ribs came out pretty good too!


That Weber served me well right up until 18 months ago when I got a CGSP offset... and the kettle remains in good condition, and I use it still for various things.

 

[mballi3011]

I remember about 5 years ago the wife bought me a Gosm and it sat there looking good for about 6 months and then I used it and it was like heaven gave up some of it's cooking goodness and I was hooked. I have always been into cooking for my whole life mainly cause my mom couldn't boil water and if I wanted something good I had to fix it myself. So now I'm really thinking hard about a catering business cause building is going to the bottom of the ocean and I don't speak the language anyway.

 

[grogger27]

I use to work for a guy who smoked turkeys every Christmas and we would deliver them for all the contractors we did work for. It was great pulling into the shop at the end of the night. All these big diesel trucks spewing their diesel exhaust fumes throughout the shop, but they couldn't over power the hint of smoked hickory. Mmmmmmmm. Every once in a while he had a bird that came missing a wing or leg and he'd smoke it and send it home with one of his employees. Being single at the time I took it to my folks place to share. Eventually my Dad wanted to try it himself, so us kids bought him a gas powered bullet Masterbuillt smoker for Christmas. He used it once and forgot about it. After he passed away three years ago, my step mom gave it to me. The following week I had my family over for my birthday celebration and treated them to smoked salmon. It wasn't all that bad. My only issue was that it was very windy that day and eventually the only place I could use the smoker was under the deck against the house. My mother-in-law (also my house insurance agent) asked afterwards if I was worried about the open flame under the deck next to the house. I answered with "not until now!"
Since then I sold that smoker and bought a MES. Planning to expand my arsenal this summer.
Thanks for the memories.

 

[boiseque]

My first real smoke was a tri tip. I bought a Masterbuilt 7-n-1 smoker on sale at Cabelas with some Birthday money, right after we moved and there it sat in the garage for months and months. I started catching flack from my fiancee about why I ever bought it, so I did some research on smoking various things. I really wanted to smoke a butt and get some real pulled pork, not the BBQ sauce slathered crud that you get in Idaho, but decided to hold off on that and try something smaller. We were coming home from kayaking and we stopped at the store and bought a nice tri tip and some rub that my fiancee had used on tri tip before. Took it home fired up the smoker and it came out really good. I was using to much smoke though, and since finding this forum I have strived for TBS not white and billowing like I thought you had to have. I havent looked back since now the whole family loves it when I decide to smoke something, which is just about every weekend. I even just bought a second smoker a 40" MES. Just need to season her and then see what she can do. This forum is an amazing place, a great wealth of knowledge and a general willingness to help from everyone here. Its not often in todays world where you find so many folks willing to help someone out like you do here. My smoking will only continue to improve from here on out, with the help of the great folks here.

 

[smokey bones]

i bought one of those little steel boxes that slide open and are loaded with wood chips to be put on a gas grill .... huge disappointment... oh well

 

[carnuba]

first one huh?

chicken thighs with hickory, on a ecb i won at work.
best chicken i ever did.
everything else after that, not so much.
until i found this site.

 

[venture]

Not counting the foil packets, the first real smoke would have been mid 1980's on the old orange ECB.

No clue what I was doing, just following the instructions.

Amazingly, aside from being a bit over smoked or stale smoked, the butt came out pretty good. Or at least I thought it was pretty good back then.

I knew the meat was very well done, but the red color was a bit baffling to me. LOL