smoker virgin

Mentioned to father-in-law that i was looking at getting a smoker and he offered one of his three. Its a decent smoker - New Braunfels Bandera series. Problem is, I don't what the hell I'm doing.

I want to start with some pork ribs. How long should this take at what temp?

What else do I need to know?

 

This site is geared towards the smoker I have, but same stuff still applies.

The Link

 

Haha, I thought this was a thread about learning how to inhale ...

 

i thought it was about a chick that looks like a hoor because she smokes. like Baylor girls.

 

Get The Legends of Texas Barbecue book - it will tell you all you need to know to get started.

 

Spare or babybacks?

I like spare ribs, I use the rub mentioned here: The Link

This is what they look like after they've been trimmed and rubbed:



And then I use the 3-2-1 method. That basically means 3 hours in the smoke, 2 hours in foil to get them tender, and one more hour int he smoke to firm them back up a little.

I smoke them around 225 for 3 hours.

Here they are on the pit (it's basically a Bandera, just a different brand):



And here they are 3 hours or so later, you can see the meat starting to pull back from the bones:



I take them off, wrap them in foil, and put them in the oven (usually for about 90 minutes, I don't think I've ever gone 2 hours). After that, this is what they will look like, the meat is really pulling back from the bones, and if you tried you could just pull the bones out, the meat is that tender after being in the foil:



So I throw them back on the smoker for about 45 minutes to an hour to firm up, and this is the finished product:



It's easy and they taste great.

 

Damn that looks good

 

I ended up doing three racks of spare ribs at 200 +/- for 4 hours. I wrapped them in foil the last hour or so. turned out pretty damn good.

Now some questions, i used pecan wood and no charcoal as a primary source of heat. Was pecan a good choice and should you use a charcoal base and then add wood for smoke? Also, do you put water in the bowl at the bottom of the smoker?

Finally, how do you remove some rust from the interior?

 

Bandera Brethren

Check out the Bandera Brethren site. Lots of good info, including how to make some mods that may be of interest..

 

Pecan is a fine wood for smoking. If you have an ample supply to lay down a good base of coals, you don't need charcoal.

As far as the rust, heat the smoker up (probably enough after your cooking), after it cools down, hit the rust with a wire brush. Stainless steel brush like you can buy in the paint department at HD or Lowe's is fine. Brush it down good and then spray it down with Pam cooking oil. That should take care of it.