New Smoker in Texas!

[isellrivets]

Hi Everyone!  I have been wanting to get a smoker for a very long time.  I finally got one, and being a completely and totally ignorant in smoking, I decided to get a MES 40.  I just figured I needed to learn all the ins out outs of prep, before really worrying about trying to maintain the correct temperature (as much)... 

Maybe once I get a little more experience, I can move up the difficulty level, and play with a "fire" smoker...  but for now, this will do.

So being COMPLETELY new, any tips and advice would be greatly appreciated. 

Things I like:

Brisket - my absolute favorite

Chickens

Pork Ribs (and pork in general)

And like I said, I know so little about smoking, that I don't really even know what else I CAN smoke...

(I've heard people make mac and cheese in a smoker!  sounds delish!)

So right now I have a pristine, brand new, never turned on 40in MES (the red one from QVC)...  And I have a bag of mesquite wood chips.  I would really like to do a chicken or two, and maybe a small brisket this weekend, but don't know what the steps to do that are (I think I need to brine the chicken first right?)

Any books - or blogs - or instructions  on this site that you can point me to would be awesome!  I already do 95% of the cooking in our house anyway, and I was hoping to take it up a notch with this smoker.

What do you think  of this smoker as a "first" smoker?  Any tips for this particular smoker?  Anything to watch out for?  or any general information at all! 

Thanks!  Glad to be here, and hopefully I don't drive you all nuts.  But I do promise to share my progress, before and after pics, and contribute to the forums as much as I can.

Jason  (Isellrivets)

DFW, Texas 

 

[isellrivets]

Oh wow! And I just saw this thread:

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/87031/rollin-a-fatty-my-version

and It looks AMAZING.  That is something that I could REALLY get into, and have different variants!

I think I'm gonna be REALLY busy here in the next few months!

Jason

 

[themule69]

Glad you joined the group. The search bar at the top of any page is your best friend.
About anything you wanna know about smoking/grilling/curing/brining/cutting or slicing
and the list goes on has probably been posted. Remember to post a QVIEW of your smokes.
We are all smoke junkies here and we have to get our fix. If you have questions
Post it and you will probably get 10 replies with 11 different answers. That is
because their are so many different ways to make great Q...
Happy smoken.
David

 

[gary s]

Hello Jason, and welcome to the site, from a sunny and hot East Texas. You will find lots of great information and good people here. Look through the different forums and post, Here are a couple of post I did on brisket

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/...r-the-misconception-of-the-1-to-1-5-hour-rule

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/...st-on-misconception-of-the-1-to-1-5-hour-rule

Also check out Bearcarver's  "step by step"

Gary S

 

[isellrivets]

Thank you all for the welcome! I finally got a chance to season my new MES.. The smell coming out of it with ONLY smoke in it was awesome! Now I have to figure out what to do next. I'm not the greatest "planner", so brining things will be harder for me coordinate...

Off to look at the brisket links earlier in this post! Thank You!

Jason