First Time Smoker

[fender4645]

Hi all.  So after 6 years of saying "This summer I'm getting a smoker", I finally did!  I've never smoked an ounce a meat before in my life so I went with an electric Masterbuilt.  I'm hoping as I get the hang of things I'll be able to graduate to BGE or some other charcoal-based smoker.

So last weekend I broker the sucker in.  I got myself 2 racks of baby-back pork rips from my local butcher and cut them each in half (so it would fit).  A friend of mine who uses a BGE gave a rub recipe which applied the night before.  I scoured the internet tips and advice and ended up smoking at 250 for ~4 hours.  I did them unwrapped for 2 hours, wrapped in foil, and then unwrapped for about 45 minutes.  They looked beautiful at this point but I noticed the rub was still a little "squishy" (the rub was brown sugar based with a bunch of other spices).  My buddy had said that he likes to finish them up on the grill.  So I threw them on medium-high grill and they almost immediately burned.  Doh!!!  Took them and let them rest for about 20 minutes.  I cut off some ribs and they were obviously overdone.  I'm not sure if that happened on the grill (they were for about 7 minutes) or if I smoked too long.  Another thing that I'm not sure about is if I should constantly be adding wood chips.  I would add wood whenever the smoke stopped coming out of the air damper.  I remember reading on a couple sites that you don't necessarily want it to be "smoking" the entire time.

Any thoughts/comments are greatly appreciated.  Going to try a pork butt this weekend!!

Thanks!

 

[ron eb]

You could try the 3-2-1 method. I have used this on spare ribs.

3 Hours of smoke 240. 2 Hours wrapped in foil at 240 (Add some some liquid to the foil such as apple juice to create a moist environment. 1 Hour unwrapped back on 240 heat to firm up a little and get some bark.

You can find this method on the internets.

 

[brooksy]

I would venture to say it was the hot grill treatment at the end that put you over the top. I normally cook my spares at around 250 for 5/6 hours unwrapped. No you don't have to see the smoke to actually be smoking. As long as you can smell smoke your good. I'm sure you'll be happier with your butt this weekend. I'm not a wrapper so can't really say how it makes things turn out and I'm a stick bring guy but I would give yourself minimum of 12 hours for a butt. Could be less but it's a good starting point I think

 

[fender4645]

Thanks so much for your input, guys.  I was thinking the same thing -- the grill is what did it.  I'm wondering too if I actually put too much of the rub on and that would explain why it wasn't as "barky" feeling (it looked great!) but rather more squishy.