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smoking first time smoker-

salsalady

salsalady

Business Member
And since it's in the BBQ/grill forum...not The Lounge...you know what type of smoking I'm talking about!

All you guys and gals posting such great looking foods inspired us to give it a go.

A few of the challenges-
we only have a gas grill, no wood, it's 15F outside.....but it was New Years Day! Gotta give it a go~ :woohoo:


I found this pan SS tray from a toaster oven/broiler at the thrift store and it already had the holes in the ends. Took the burner-baffle thingy out of the BBQ so all that was in there was the grill rack and the burner element. The idea was to suspend the tray over the burner on one side of the bbq and have the meat on the other side3, off the heat. Put 4 wires in the pan, and ended up cutting them shorter to get the pan higher from the burner flames.

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A little later with it actually fired up. This photo has water in the pan, which quickly evaporated and then the wood started to smoke.

We had to dig under about 3 feet/1 meter of snow to get to some tree prunings from last year in the burn pile and found some apple branches. Cut them into small pieces and soaked them in water for 45-60 minutes.
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There's the rack-
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The rub- leftover Cajun spice mix (from the Cajun throwdown), brown sugar, red pepper blend (a variety of dried hot red peppers from 2010 growing season, bhuts, habs, peters, cayennes)

Salsakid getting the ribs all happy with RubLuv-
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We were following the 3-2-1- timing thing, and when it started looking like the ribs were actually going to work, John suggested throwing on the chicken breasts that were in the refer!

Rubbed them up, just like the ribs, and onto the grill. I was however concerned about thick chick breasts cooking at such a low heat, so I rotated the chickies more around the smoke pan.
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I can finally be accused of smoking and drinking!!!
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con't-
 
At the 3 hour mark, we added bbq sauce and foiled it.

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After another 2 hours it was ready. The results-

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bottom side of the chicken...OOPS!
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Verdict from the family is TWO THUMBS UP from everyone! It was a bit of work for not that much meat on the one rack of ribs that we did, but I was scared to fork out the cash for something I wasn't sure would work!

The smoke flavor got into the meats nicely. We had to replenish the wood chips about every 30 minutes as they burned up, but for a first time experiment not knowing what we were doing, it was a total success!!!

Thanks to all the other posters around here! Just seeing how others do their thang has really helped us to have the confidence to try something new and different and the results are usually terrific.

Viva THP!
 
Thanks chileaddict! MAN! you are a fast poster, I didn't even have time to get the edits done....lol....it's all good.

BTW, happy new year to you and Mrs CA, did you see the NM chiles and powder in this weekends TD?

The "last straw" for us to try smoking was, we stopped at the Rib Eye restaurant down by Kelso and got a rack to go. After that, we had to at least try it!


Oh yea, the temp seemed to be holding around 250-275F on the off side of the grill. I couldn't keep very accurate track of the temp because all I had was an oven thermometer on the grill, and every time ya open the grill to check the temp, the smoke gets out~~~~~

So after the first few checks, I just let it go and checked it as the wood chips got replenished about every 30 minutes.

It was a fun New Years Day for us to share.

I suppose the best compliment of all was when the 'Kid asked for ribs for his upcoming birthday party instead of pizza and cake. I love that little guy!
:woohoo:
 
Smoking meats and chilies is sooo addicting. I will have to see your TD pics. If you don't already have one, get a digital probe thermometer. I think it is very important to see the exact temp inside the meat, or outside. My next smoking project will be a big fat salmon...soon.
 
Oh Yea, I can see that addicting thing kicking in already. We talked about a brisket or more ribs yesterday.

Smoked salmon! If I didn't live 5 hours away I'd invite myself over for dinner. :)

as for the design., I can definitely see why smokers are designed the way they are, and using the bbq grill did work very well! But it's not a set up I'd look to use all the time. Having to open the lid and lift up the grill with all the meats on it to get more wood chips into the pan was not the ideal situation. It did WORK well and got a good smoke going, it was just not very user friendly. But that's OK for the first go around. It was about using what we had and the results were really YUMMY!
 
Wow look at all that snow! That looks amazing SL. I was almost worried I would see SK with a horrible cig in his hand for just a moment lol. Glad its the good kind of smoking.
 
Whoa I'm drunkered right now! Nice smoke, I'm not a huge fan of the curly-boned baby backs next time try spare ribs, cut St. Louis style, which is just squared and trimmed, but they are a nice flat rib with good meat.
 
THP- those were the only ribs in the store, but I'll have to go to the local awesome butcher for the next racks!


And LnF- If that ever happens with the 'kid and a cig, you have our permission to flail him with a bhut!
 
great cook

as for your chicken, you can smoke it at the same temp as you were Q'ing your ribs, your skin will not turn out very crispy but thats the joy of doing it on the grill, you can crank up the heat right at the end.

for ribs,chicken, after the first 1 - 2 hours you really dont need to add more wood as the meat takes on the smoke flavor really quickly.

thehotpepper.com said:
Whoa I'm drunkered right now! Nice smoke, I'm not a huge fan of the curly-boned baby backs next time try spare ribs, cut St. Louis style, which is just squared and trimmed, but they are a nice flat rib with good meat.
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i use to be that until i found a few good places that sell the pork loin back ribs...so much more meat. they cook quicker
 
SL way to go, +1000 for the inovation and mouth watering pics. THP is right, best cut of ribs is St. Louis, lots of meat and no chine. I gotta get me some kind of smoker.
 
Thanks Bams,
The chicken was big bl/sl breasts that we happened to have in the refer. They were about 2" thick and the ribs were about 3/4 thick. That's why I was worried about the cooking time and making sure they got cooked fast enough. Thinking that the ribs were going to be on the grill for 6 hours, I was concerned about "slow cooking" chicken that same amount of time.

And thanks for the smoke time tip, also. As it said...first time! but not the last time!


LC- we'll be looking for these other cuts of ribs on the next go around. It was spur of the moment and that's what the store had. Now we can get/look for the better cuts.

It was a ton of fun, and I can see why people get addicted to this style of cooking.

Keep the tips coming, amigos.
 
a dougie or a bhut....Your Choice, amigo! :rofl:
 
Good job, Salsalady. If you are going to keep smoking (which I highly recommend) you might consider a Weber Smoky Mountain Cooker (WSM). They come in either 18.5 or 22.5 inch models and run about $250/400 respectively. They are as close as you will get to a set- it-and-forget-it cooker. I wish I would have bought mine years ago.
 
thanks, Midwest, when the time comes to get a proper smoker, we'll definitely look at that unit.

I just couldn't wait and improvised. A couple years ago I had a Lil' Chief aluminum smoker that was donated to a garage sale, and I think it went for $5. At the time, I said..."we'll never smoke ANYTHING"... :crazy: ..aw, well, it's all good~

With the tip about only needing smoke for the first couple hours, that makes it a whole lot easier to use the homemade smoker pan. It wouldn't have been too bad except the wood chips were too big to push through the bbq grill grate and we had to lift up the rack with all the meat on it and try to throw a few chunks of wood into the pan without dumping all the meat down into the bbq...lol...it was great!
 
its ok you let the little chief go...that is a good smoker for doing fish and low heat but never gets up high enough heat for bbq.

WSM are very good cookers.

i made a mini version of it for a fraction of the price and i can cook enough food comfortable on it for a family of 4 or 5
 
tasty looking ribs n chicken. I like buying country style ribs cuz they have alot of meat on them, I dont even know what St. Louis cut style look like.
 
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