Newbie here. first experiences and some questions

[AllenOK]

One thing to remember, is that the Health Department, and some manufacturers, have a "Mother knows best" attitude towards the general public. The minimum safe temperature for chicken is 165 degrees F. However, the Health Department recommends that home cooks keep cooking chicken until it's around 175 - 180 degrees F. This is complete crap, as it results in dry, tough chicken that tastes like sawdust. The meat thermometer is also wrong.

This is another reason why I prefer to purchase equipment that just lists the temperature, not the spot where "they" feel it's done.

Doomsday, with no exhaust on your smoker, I feel you might have a problem with creosote depositing onto your meat. I made that mistake, once. I shut the exhaust on my smoker, and after 3 hours, a rack of ribs was as black as charcoal, and the temp never went above 250 degrees F.

You might want to consider taking a power drill and drilling a few 1/4" holes in the lid. This will do two things:

1) Provide an "exhaust" for the excess smoke.
2) Provide a quick access point for a probe thermometer, so you can accurately guage the temperature of your smoker.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Doomsday...

Do NOT drill holes in your cooker! It was designed by the manufacturer to operate efficiently as is.

Excesss smoke is caused by poor fire control, or in your case using to much flavoring wood in your electric cooker. Solve the problem by mastering proper cooking techniques not by drilling holes.

Also temperatures are best measured at the cooking level not in the top of the lid where you will get high, misleading readings. In your particular electric cooker, if left to operate as it was designed to do, your temperature will remain a steady 225*

 

[DoomsDay]

I Did my test run friday and smoked some chicken thighs. It appears it took them about 3 1/2 hours to be done in the smoker. However, 1 hour of smoke did not seem to be enough for me. It ended up with a very very light smoke flavor (and I was using hickory). I think tomorrow I am going to try and smoke for about 2 hours and see how that goes. BTW, I used the chicken rub recipe that was suggested. It turned out pretty nice.

Thanks

 

[Uncle Bob]

Good job Doomsday!

Get in there and "get your hands dirty"! Get aquainted with your cooker!
Keep a 'log book' of what you do and the results you get. Pretty soon you'll be truning out product that you and you family enjoy! Thats BBQing!!

Have Fun!!

 

[love2"Q"]

uncle bob nailed it on the head with a log book ..
its a science experiment .. write everything you can down ..
when i first got my smoker , i went out bought some cheap
leg quarters .. experimented with those until i found a heat/smoke
combo that worked for me ..

 

[AllenOK]

I concur, and I do the same thing. When I try something new, I record the type of meat, weight, how long it cooked (in the smoker and in the oven, for the longer-cooked meats), and average temp.

I also do the same thing when I brine. I find that this helps immensely when planning to cook something big, and I already know how much brine to use, and what container to put it into, or when I'm brining a different cut of meat, but about the same size as something else.

This is also how caterers work. They'll keep records of how much food was prepped for a given party, how much was actually consumed, the number of people, type of event, and any other notes (like mostly older folks, lots of men, lots of kids, etc.)

 

[kitchenelf]

I feel sure the temp on my chicken was not accurate (was probably higher) as towards the end I kept opening the front door - I didn't check the back of the bird - I gauged by "wiggle" I know it's not accurate but I knew it was done after 7 hours.

 

[CasperImproved]

I Did my test run friday and smoked some chicken thighs. It appears it took them about 3 1/2 hours to be done in the smoker. However, 1 hour of smoke did not seem to be enough for me. It ended up with a very very light smoke flavor (and I was using hickory). I think tomorrow I am going to try and smoke for about 2 hours and see how that goes. BTW, I used the chicken rub recipe that was suggested. It turned out pretty nice.

Thanks

DoomsDay - I am a little late to respond, and being a BBQ novice myself, I thought I would point you to some experts on the topic. If you are willing, or experienced at USENET, visit the group alt.food.barbecue. They have an *EXCELLANT* faq on doing real BBQ, and even if they are a bit stuffy, they will help you when you have questions.

BTW, wasn't knocking the folks here as they are not only helpful, they are smart. ;-)

C

 

[jminion]

DoomsDay
To keep the wood from bursting into flames use chips and place them in a foil packet, wrap tight and poke a couple of wholes in the top of the packet. That will keep the wood from burning but will supply smoke. Should make the temp control easier.

Jim

 

[DoomsDay]

Sundays attempt was very good. I had no heat problems at all, the soaking of the wood for 2 hours is keeping it from bursting into flames and is making it smolder very nicely. I did however try a different rub and sauce and everyone liked it a lot. My wife said she still preferred the first rub I did which was the one kitchenelf suggested. I was very happy that when I went to serve them they looked just like you would see on tv, nice and shiney and sticky with the bbq sauce I had on them.

I will be attempting some ribs this coming weekend so wish me luck. By golly I am going to make these things tender if I have to cook them for 30 hours hehe.

And thanks for the suggestion Casper, I am familiar with usenet and will check it out to...

 

[aesthete]

Soaked wood chunks (never use chips) will heat up and produce smoke

i'm interested in your arguments for using chunks over chips. i've expirimented with both and haven't felt strongly against chips

 

[Renee Attili]

Welcome to Discuss Cooking!
My first suggestion is... smoke is really only needed for the first hour to 2 hours. After that you will get that "Too Smoky" flavor.
Second suggestion... Get yourself a remote meat thermometer. You can leave it in and know what is going on with the interior of you meat.
Third suggestion... Use something other than mesquite or hickory. Both have a tendency to be over powering and bitter. Try instead a pecan, apple, or oak. More mild but definetly flavorful, without the bitter.
I always soak my wood. But I will use a beer/water combo and that way any steam that comes off the wood also will add to the overall flavor.
Good Luck and Happy Q-ing

 

[BBQBob]

You are getting a lot of good info from the folks here on DC. I use the Brinkman charcoal bullet smoker most of the time when I smoke food. Most of the time it is only my wife and I, so I don't need to cook a large quantity. Although last weekend was our annual driveway bbq party and we had 80 100 guests. For that I borrowed a large cooker.
I purchased a digital food thermoter and I lay it on the cooking grill near the meat. I want to know the cooking temp inside the cooker. The guage on the Brinkman smoker is not much help. I cook a lot of Baby Backs and the bullet smoker can do a great job. I always remove the membrane from the ribs and I recently started to brine the rib for several hours before I put on the rub. The idea of using apple juice in the water pan is great. I also add apple juice to my brine.
I have found that hickory has a stronger smoke flavor than some of the other woods. My favorites are apple for poultry and fish and pecan for beef and pork. The pecan is a member of the hickory family but the smoke flavor is not nearly as strong. Using these woods, I usually keep it smoking almost the entire cooking time.
You can get a lot of helpful tips from others, but the best teacher is experience. Just keep trying 'til you are happy with the results. Then keep expermenting.

 

[DoomsDay]

Thanks for all the information. I was starting to get discouraged with my spare ribs attempts as my last attempt ended very badly. I cooked these ribs for almost 6 hours but they still wasn't where I wanted them to be in tenderness, They were close, but not what I was wanting. That aside, I had a major problem with the rub. I had made a big batch and this was the last bit of the rub that I was using and it turns out that most of the salt in the rub ended up in the bottom of the bag and made my spare ribs WAY to salty. I mean I am a salt lover and these things raised my blood pressure just looking at them.

A friend of mine who has the exact same smoker I do, gave me a recipe to try for baby back ribs. This one called for me to brine the meat over night and that is exactly what I did. I used the rub that was with the recipe and I was a bit disappointed in the taste. I found out I am not much of a summer savory fan on baby back ribs lol. The good news, I had roughly 3 pounds of baby backs and smoked them for roughly 5 hours and 20 minutes at 225 degrees. They turned out EXACTLY the way I wanted them to be for tenderness. They were not fall off the bone but when you bit into one the meat just fell right into your mouth with no pressure at all.

Ok, so things I have learned.

Summer savory on ribs is a no no.
The wood I used this last time was hickory but it was from very young trees out of my parents back yard. It imparted almost no flavor at all into the meat and I had it smoking for the entire 5 hours (3 small chunks of wood per 1 1/2 hours)
I think the most important one is to brine my meat the night before to get that texture that I want in a rib.


So now I have the texture down, now to find that ultimate rub to go on the meat