First smoke attempt!

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sc 4x4 guy

Fire Starter
Original poster
May 31, 2015
35
11
Greenville S.C.
Alright guys Friday I bought my first smoker. It is a New Braunfels Hondo model. I burned a whole bag of coal in it today to burn it out and cooked some boneless skinless chicken breast and some corn on the cob did great as a grill. Now here is my question tomorrow I am going to attempt to smoke a rack of ribs can I use charcoal in the firebox with woodchips or should I get some real wood and just use the coal to get the smoker to temp and to light the wood? Any advice, tips greatly appreciated looking forward to having lots of fun but want to limit the bad problems if I can.  
 
james, I usually put in a pretty good amount of Royal Oak lump for a good base of coals. I light this with 1/2 to 2/3 chimney of Royal Oak briqs. I leave everything open to get it going good. When the lump is fully involved, I put in a couple of splits When the splits are burning, I will close the CC doors. When my temp is in the upper range of where I want to cook, I will add 1 or 2 more splits. When they are burning and the temp is holding, I put my meat on. Then I just monitor my temp range and add splits as necessary. This is working great for me.

I see your FB is round at the top. If you can balance a couple of splits on top, they will pre-heat and will ignite quicker when you add them. Or if you have enough room in the FB, you can stick them in there away from the actual fire to get warm.

When you want to smoke 2 racks of ribs, just call me and I will come over and supervise. BTW, I was outside a few minutes ago and thought I smelled smoke. Don't you know what the temp is today? Joe
 
On facebook, but hardly ever look at it. Lowe's has the Royal Oak and should have a sale coming up for July 4. The Easter sale was 17.8# bags for $9.88. I stocked up, so I don't know what the Memorial Day price was. They have other brands, but I much prefer the RO.

You're at 95* now. I hope you mean the air temp and not your cooker. If I looked right now, my cooker is probably about 115* without any fire. lol
 
First smoke yesterday, built a mansion of a smoker, 350 lb capacity, started small with the meats I chose, one pork but n I made 8 summer sausages, epic failure., master griller can cook anything on gods green esrth over wood.. but it appears that smoking takes a bit of know how
 
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