Texan, Brinkmann SNP, new to smoking, looking for advice!

[snedecor]

Greetings, All,

I'm Gayle Snedecor, live south of Houston, TX.  I've been a griller all my life, both charcoal (Weber silver) and gas (Weber Genesis).

I got a Brinkmann SNP for Christmas, and put it together and seasoned it before I realized how many issues it has (oops!).  I'm starting to mod it and will be adding a charcoal basket, relocating the stack, making some type of baffle, and perhaps sealing up the many air leaks in the unit.

I want to start slow and not ruin a lot of meat, so I'm looking on what I should start first on, what's hardest to screw up?

I'm looking for modification advice for the SNP, as well as tips on how to get up the learning curve...

Thanks!

 

[kathrynn]

Welcome to the Forums....try some chicken..they are not that pricey or do some pulled pork. Both are delish!

 

[s2k9k]

Hi Gayle! 

to SMF!!! We're happy you found us! You've come to the right place, we have over 40,000 members and over 800,000 posts so you should be able to find almost anything you want to know. Remember the search bar at the top can be your best friend for finding answers fast!

Would you do us a favor and update your profile to include your location, Thanks!

You might want to check out Jeff's Free 5 day E-course it will teach you all the basics and a whole lot more!

If you have any questions about the forums or need any help navigating around don’t hesitate to ask or send me a PM, I am more than happy to help out!

 

[bruno994]

X2 to KathrynN's advice, its' always best to start out with chicken (whole, cut up, halved, you name it), then move on to some ribs (spares or baby backs, using the 3-2-1 method for spares or 2-2-1 for baby backs) or pork shoulders (either Boston Butt or picnic shoulders).  Watch your local grocery stores and stock up during sales.  It's better to ruin (not that you will with the advice youll get here) cheap meat at first than full price!

Get yourself a good meat thermometer, digital preferably.  Cook to internal meat temps, not times on all poultry.  Same goes for pork and beef, but feel comes into play to know for sure if they are tender as they need to be.

Happy smoking!