# First time smoker looking for advice.



## jpatrick88 (Apr 27, 2020)

This weekend will be the first-time smoking and I am looking for help with my plan to make this go right.






In the picture is the grill I have at my place. I have a rack of ribs I am going to smoke. I will start by getting my coals hot then putting chips wrapped in foil with holes into my fire box on the coals. Inside the main compartment ill have a water pan close to where the offset connects and a drip pan on opposite under ribs. Both pans under the grates the ribs will be on. I will leave ribs in for three hours spraying every thirty minutes. At the 3-hour mark Ill wrap the ribs in foil and put back for two hours. My final hour the ribs will be cooked without the foil. Anything I am missing or need to change?


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## smokin peachey (Apr 27, 2020)

Welcome to the forum. Sounds like you have a plan. I have a similar offset set up and I put some charcoal in the cook chamber and a few in the firebox and then add pieces of wood into the firebox to make an actual fire. I’ve never tried the chips in foyal deal but would recommend trying an actual fire. Might be good to do a test run before adding meat. Remember you want thin blue smoke from a clean fire not white smoke from smoldering wood.


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## kruizer (Apr 27, 2020)

Welcome to SMF from Minnesota.


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## Blues1 (Apr 27, 2020)

Welcome from SC!


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## smokngun (Apr 27, 2020)

My advice would be do a test run exactly how you have laid out with no food. This will give you an idea of temps with opening the smoker, if you have enough charcoal, how long a foil pack will last, is it enough smoke? I personally would skip the wood chips and go with chunks, but that is just me, I like smokey BBQ.


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## schlotz (Apr 27, 2020)

Could make a difference, St.Louis vs Babybacks?   STL is 3-2-1 while BB usually go 2-2-1 but that also depends on what temp you'll be smoking at.


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## jpatrick88 (Apr 28, 2020)

Thanks for all the comments. I



 smokin peachey
 I think I will skip the foil. I'm going to go return the chips today and get chunks. I'm going to get it smoking for sure before I add the ribs but these ribs are my test run.



 kruizer
 Thanks.



 Blues1
 Thanks for the welcome. I'm from just north of you in NC.



 smokngun
 Using this rib rack is supposed to be my test run. Im going to get the smoker going and play a little with it before putting the meat on but I just got the real cheap rack for the practice run.



 schlotz
 I'll be honest I have no idea what the differences are between those two but my rack doesn't say anything but "beef rib rack". I'll have to do some research on different ribs so I'll know for next time.


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## schlotz (Apr 28, 2020)

St. Louis cut and Babyback are 'pork'.  Only 'ribs' were mentioned in the post so I was assuming (my bad) you were referring to pork.  Beef ribs are different.


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