I had yesterday off, so I was eager to fire up the new smoker and see how it worked.
Lighting the smoker was no big deal, I started a chimney of briquettes and when they were going good I dumped em down the chute, filled it with charcoal and apple wood chunks and waited for it to come to the temp of 250. it took about 45 min, and while I was waiting I took the 2 9 pound pork butts out of the fridge. I injected them the night before, so I added rub and put em on the smoker.
Two hours later I added 4 racks of spare ribs, trimmed. I'm trying a few new things with my ribs, and thought I'd give some time to cooking em up.
The ribs smoked for 3 hours, then I panned them on racks for 2 more. Then I took em out of the pans added some glaze and back in the smoker to firm em up.
The butts got panned after 4 hours, and cooked another 4 hours till they reached my target temp. Then I wrapped em in blankets and rested em for 2 hours before pulling them.
Observations, my ribs with the coarse rub needs something to hold the rub on em! Maybe next time I'll put on some vegetable or olive oil first.
The pit holds temp, but with that big door really dumps temp if you open it.
I don't think there was as much smoke flavor as my Good One Marshall, which I usually fire with charcoal, and add sticks one or 2 at a time for smoke. On the Vulcan I did open the fire box door and add sticks to the ash pan which seemed to help. I'll experiment with this a bit more, maybe the new Kingsford charcoal with apple wood...
The BBQ Guru rules, it kept The pit within a few degrees +/- of the set temp with the exception of door openings, and even then it brought it back to temp with no effort from me.
The water pan is entirely too small.It was dry by the time I was done I'll put a couple of the big foil pans on the water pan and fill them.
I've given most of this away, and everyone has really liked the food! No pics of the butts before I pulled em, but here are the pics I did get.
Lighting the smoker was no big deal, I started a chimney of briquettes and when they were going good I dumped em down the chute, filled it with charcoal and apple wood chunks and waited for it to come to the temp of 250. it took about 45 min, and while I was waiting I took the 2 9 pound pork butts out of the fridge. I injected them the night before, so I added rub and put em on the smoker.
Two hours later I added 4 racks of spare ribs, trimmed. I'm trying a few new things with my ribs, and thought I'd give some time to cooking em up.
The ribs smoked for 3 hours, then I panned them on racks for 2 more. Then I took em out of the pans added some glaze and back in the smoker to firm em up.
The butts got panned after 4 hours, and cooked another 4 hours till they reached my target temp. Then I wrapped em in blankets and rested em for 2 hours before pulling them.
Observations, my ribs with the coarse rub needs something to hold the rub on em! Maybe next time I'll put on some vegetable or olive oil first.
The pit holds temp, but with that big door really dumps temp if you open it.
I don't think there was as much smoke flavor as my Good One Marshall, which I usually fire with charcoal, and add sticks one or 2 at a time for smoke. On the Vulcan I did open the fire box door and add sticks to the ash pan which seemed to help. I'll experiment with this a bit more, maybe the new Kingsford charcoal with apple wood...
The BBQ Guru rules, it kept The pit within a few degrees +/- of the set temp with the exception of door openings, and even then it brought it back to temp with no effort from me.
The water pan is entirely too small.It was dry by the time I was done I'll put a couple of the big foil pans on the water pan and fill them.
I've given most of this away, and everyone has really liked the food! No pics of the butts before I pulled em, but here are the pics I did get.
