1st Smoke. . . QView

[smokefever]

Well, I decided to do a couple racks of BB's today. . . . but couldn't stop there. While at the store, I picked up a Picnic and Butt which are sleeping right now awaiting their departure to the smoker.







































I will have more pics up when the ribs are out. Its been almost 3 hrs now since they first went on, and the smoker is holding a steady temp @ 235. I did notice that there does seem to be a hotspot even with the baffle as the ribs have darker spots in the same place on both of them. Hopefully it is a minor issue and if anyone has an idea how I can correct it I would be very appreciative. Thanks for lookin'

 

[scarbelly]

Everything is looking great so far. Great job

 

[ellymae]

If you hae a hot spot for this cook you may want to rotate the meat. What time you planning on pulling the butt??

 

[forluvofsmoke]

Nice lookin' round #1!

I'm not familiar with the duo myself, so not sure what the baffle problem may be...I think there's a few duo users on here though.

It does sound like you may be able to play around a bit and just cover the hot spot(s) with a metal sheet, metal baking pan, foil pan, or something of that sort to create better baffling. If foil pans are used, it can't be too close to the heat source or it may destroy it and contaminate the food with nasty vapors.

Keep smokin', brother!

Eric

 

[smokefever]

Just doin the BB's tonite to test it out and see how the temps hold. I plan on doin a overnite smoke tomorrow nite for the butt and picnic. I have had to rotate the ribs due to the hot spot. Instead of having them horizontal in the chamber, I turned them to be vertical.

 

[smokefever]

The thing with the Duo is that it has the adjustable grate for the coals in the cooking chamber. Since I am using that part as a smoker, I turned the grate upside down to make a baffle. It just isn't covering the entrance to the SFB completely which is where I am guessing the hot spot is coming from. Its only about a 1 1/2" gap at the top of the entrance, so I don't know what I can use to cover it up??

 

[forluvofsmoke]

OK, that is a similar situation to what I was dealing with on my SNP when it was new. I did some bending of the supports/handles for the coal grate/ashpan so that it would lay close against the side fire box end. That helped quite a bit...I did eventually do a tuning plate mod which covers the entire area just above the sfb outlet to the cook chamber, from front to back, leaving about 1.5 inches of clearance on the vent stack end from the end of the chamber. It has lots of smaller holes drilled in it, and was tuned for my specific smoker with about a dozen oven rack therms...this was using a turkey fryer gas burner for heat.

Anyway, some mods will probably be in order to get the most out of your rig...trust me, you're not alone, there are no perfectly built and tested smokers, unless you spend some really serious cash.

Keep the fire burnin', brother!

Eric

 

[smokefever]

And at last, we have the finished product. These took right @ 5 hours and finish temp was 182. I couldn't be happier with my first experience smoking.













I used a combination of hickory charcoal and mesquite wood chunks for these and MAN did they taste awesome

 

[forluvofsmoke]

Well, there you have it! Very nicely done!

Next smoke may not be much issues with the hot spots with proper placement of the meat, so it should be easier to pull it off. The picnic and butt won't take up so much space.

It'll give you some time to think over a simple mod to get by with until you can do a better one.

Stay with it, 'cause you made it look EASY! My first several smokes were anything but great...man, that was a long time ago...before the days of SMF....

Eric

 

[chefrob]

keep up the good work.

 

[meateater]

Nice job, well done.

 

[smokefever]

Thanks everyone for all of your help, these last few days leading up to the test I was on here just soaking in as much knowledge as possible, and it helped out 100% I look forward to learning as much as I can from you and putting it to good use

 

[beer-b-q]

Looking Great so far...

 

[pineywoods]

Looks like an awesome first smoke