Smoking Disasters / Have you ever ruined anything you smoked?

[smokey tex]

I'm just curious if any of you have ever tried to smoke something and completely ruined it.  Surely I'm not the only one!  Here are a few things that stand out:

1. Filet Mignon Roast - probably a bad idea to begin with.  I should have just had the butcher cut this into steaks.  Even worse, I was at work and figured that I could explain to my wife how to use the smoker.  The fire didn't get hot enough to get much smoke.  The meat turned out tough on the outside, completely dry, and without much flavor.  Waste of money!

2. Beef Ribs - I have had success with beef ribs plenty of times.  At this time, I had an Old Smokey electric smoker.  For some reason, I had the idea that I could leave them on the smoker for a ridiculously long period of time.  Something like 10 hours, while I went to work.  When I got home, they were burned to a crisp.  One of our guest was trying to be nice and say they weren't bad.  But they were terrible!

3. Brisket - I have done well with brisket several times.  But early on, after doing a couple very well, I didn't bother to check the internal temperature.  It tasted fine, but was as tough as leather.

4. Turkey - I have done several great turkeys.  This was the first one, also on the Old Smokey.  The Old  Smokey had a lid that sealed very tightly and didn't let anything breathe.  It was so moist inside the smoker, that the turkey skin split wide open and the turkey completely dried out. 

All of these happened when I tried to smoke something without being there or without paying attention.  Lesson learned!

Alan

 

[SmokinAl]

When I first started smoking, I had plenty of things that didn't turn out very good.

I don't really remember anything that I couldn't eat, most just needed a lot of improvement.

Al

 

[holyfeld]

Other than my first set of baby back ribs, everything has been edible. Some had a lot of room for improvement.

With the ribs (first smoke), I thought, why not keep the vent closed? Keep all that wonderful smoke in the smoker! Pretty tar-y tasting ribs.

 

[mneeley490]

Probably my most memorable disaster was right after I made several modifications to my 1st smoker, a Charbroil horizontal. I had an intake baffle and tuning plates and raised strips, and a lowered inside stack, so that the thing would be almost air tight. Even put in some ceramic bricks along the bottom to hold in the heat.

I was so excited to try it out, that I fired it up and put a couple of big pork butts inside. About an hour later, I noticed a ton of thick, white smoke rolling out of the stack, and realized that I had forgotten to do a preliminary burn first to burn off all the oils left on the new sheet metal pieces.

I let it go and hoped for the best, but after trying 1 bite of the butt, it had a nasty, metallic taste to it. Sadly, both butts went into the trash.

Lesson learned. 

 

 

[daveomak]

I had 300#'s of Coho Salmon, my buddies, in the smoker and it caught on fire....

 

[airbornetrooper]

Never had anything I couldn't eat but plenty of times I ran out of charcoal or got frustrated with a plateau and had to bring it into the kitchen oven. 

 

[tjdcorona]

I typically cook my beef ribs at 225 for 9 hrs. How long and what temp do you usually do?