Mother's Day ribs

With yesterday's success, I decided to smoke ribs for Mother's Day using the 3-2-1 method. In summary, it's 3 hours of smoke, 2 hours wrapped in foil with moisture, and 1 hour open without smoke. If you use sauce it would be part of the last hour.

Here's phase one the 3 hour smoke, using all apple wood chunks. I staged the  2 wood bins adding the second after about 90 minutes. 

And the 2 hour wrapped phase with rootbeer, soy sauce and butter. 

Finished product turned out well. I sauced 2 racks and left one dry.  You could taste the smoke more on the dry rack.  The picture is terrible, it was a quick snap, since we all just wanted to eat and could not wait for nice lighting, etc.

First real smoke

I smoked 6 boneless chicken breasts and  3 burgers. Both came out great with the exception of one smaller burger that was dry from over cooking. The chicken was coated in olive oil and seasoned with garlic pepper and salt. They stayed on until the internal temp was 150, about 2.5 hours. The burgers were made with ground beef, egg, garlic pepper, salt, and worchestsire sauce. Patties smoked for about 2 hours then grilled for 5 mins with cheese. 

I used a homemade wood pan that was deeper, putting the wood closer to the fire and allowing the use of chunks. For this I used a mix of hickory and apple. 

The lid had fewer holes to minimize igniting and stretch out the smoke time

And the finished product - yum. 

We have smoke!

I lowered the pans to about 1" off the burner and smoke started at a little over 4 minutes and at 160 degrees.  The wood was dry, chips in one pan and chunks in the other.  Smoke was billowing at 9 minutes and   200 degrees. The doors leaked smoke, I felt bad that not all the hard earned smoke did not make it through to the top but I'm not sure it's worth sealing.  At 15 minutes we hit 225 and I dialed it back to medium to see if it would hold that temperature and maintain smoke, had to go a little lower than medium which was a good thing. 

Smoke slowed at 30 minutes when all the chips were burnt up. The chunks continued smoking for another 30 minutes and upon inspection only about 50% were burnt. The ones not over the flame looked untouched.

My conclusion is to hold off drilling the orifices and find a nice way to lower the pans without putting them in sideways to allow all the wood to burn.  Use chunks or soak the chips.  I may just make new pans shaped like a trough so gravity will push fresh wood into ask as they burn.  This new pan would also have fewer holes to minimize the chance of the wood catching fire and the extend the smoke time.  

First lighting

I added a second NG tap and tested the burners.

One would not stay lit and I noticed the air adjuster on that one was opened further. Adjusting them to be a little more closed and equal seemed to help.  

The flames were perfectly blue. So I was ready to season it. I wiped down the insides with olive oil, put all the racks in, water in the pan, chips in one wood pan and chucks in the other. I added a remote electronic thermometer with the probe in the middle of the box to see how accurate the door thermometer is and what temperature NG can hold. The door thermometer seems pretty accurate. 

The results:

Both burners in high - 280

Both burners on low - 210

One burner on low - 135

That's not too bad, but (and this is a big BUT) - there was NO smoke, even after over 3 hours. 

Upon inspection the wood was starting to blacken and while there was no visible smoke there was a smokey smell. However, definately not enough to smoke food.  Is it due to the pans being too far from the flame?  Flames not being hot enough?  More experiments will be needed. I will likely bore out the orifices. 

Why I picked the Smoke Hollow Smoker

This model stood out above all other gas models I found. 

Smoke Hollow Dual Burner 44" - PS4400

Pros

Solid construction

   - Legs are heavy

   - Handles are steel not plastic

   - Hinges are welded heavy duty lift off style,

   - Racks are a little beefier than others

   - Doors fit well and seem tight

Plenty of space, many racks, 24” wide so full racks can lay flat, hang or on edge in a rib rack

Includes Rib Rack, 2 Jerky racks, and a nice hanger - some say hanging ribs have better flavor

Window to see what’s going on so you don’t have to open the door and let out the heat and smoke

Latches have rubber tip to keep them cool, but you still need to touch the metal to get it closed.

Dual burner gives you many options - alternate burners to extend smoke time without opening the door, super low on one burner, high temp with both blazing

Covered smoke stack - What’s a joker without a smoke stack?  Makes the cover look funny, but somehow I think a smoker needs a stack, and this one is covered so the rain won’t go in.

Double wall doors provide some insulation

Simple to convert to NG

Burner is out of the wind, inside the box

Vertical cabinet style is easy to load, and add or remove anything mid-smoke.

Price - Cheaper than a Weber Smokey Moutain  or Big Green Egg

Cons

3-sides are not double wall or insulated, neither are any other gas model I’ve seen

Running only one burner may not provide even heat, and using one burner may be needed to go really low

Finish is nice, but basically hi-temp paint, so it will rusts also the same as all gas smokers I've seen

No wheels

Due to window, temp gauge is at the top, but few serious BBQ guy use the door gauge, get a Maverick 

No probe hole, hoping to get WSM Silicon probe hole grommet

Latch style is more difficult to open and close and will likely be hot, but very secure and adjustable

Smoke stack not adjustable - I think that only really matters for charcoal, so it may not be a con

Price - A little more than the stock Lowes and HD models

Smoker Assembled

It went together very easily. I can't try it out until I add a tee to the gas line on the deck.  For now it hangs out in the kitchen.

Built like a brick smokehouse

My Smoke Hollow dual burner smoker arrived today.

Thankfully it was undamaged and well packed.  Other models have a reputation for arriving dented and scratched.  The box was big and heavy and nicely packed with styrofoam. 

Everything was packed inside the large upper section with the door latched tight.  It was so heavy and cumbersome to move, I chose to open it in the box and take it out piece by piece. 

                                  

Everything seems much sturdier than the models I looked at Lowes and Home Depot.

The door seams look tight.  Many people add some type of gaskets to the doors of vertical gas smokers to keep smoke and heat from escaping but according to Ed who makes a gas conversion kit  says a gas smoker actually needs more air movement to keep the flame lit.  So sealing them up too much can be a bad thing.  I'll test and decide then.

The Natural Gas conversion looks pretty simple so far, simply swap hoses.  

Here's the inside of the burner box.  The single burner models have a cast brass burner which I would have preferred but the dual burner model uses stainless steel.  Should last awhile, and based on the looks may be simple to swap out when needed, even with a universal burner.

I have not drilled out the orifice yet. Since this tends to run hot when using propane, I wanted to see if keeping it as is will keep the temps lower.  NG needs a bigger orifice to burn the same as LP.  If the flame won't stay lit I'll drill them out.  The cover will need to be removed in the burner box to access the orifices.

Time to get a smoker

Who doesn't love fall off the bone ribs with a rich smokey flavor?  The best way to cook such gems is with low and slow with burning wood smoke billowing all around it.  There are several ways to accomplish this.

Commercial kitchen smokers are usually electric refrigerator like devices that are basically computer controlled, climate controlled environments that you set and forget.  An electric element heats wood pellets or chips to generate smoke.  There are backyard versions of electric smokers, but they are a little too clean and simple to call them BBQ tools.  There must be fire to make it a manly tool.

Hard core BBQ guys only use charcoal or wood fired smokers, which are also the only type smoker allowed in competition.  However, they must be watched and tweaked constantly to maintain a constant temperature and smoke level.  While these look awesome and make great BBQ, I'm not willing to spend all day every Saturday messing with charcoal and vents, hoping I don't ruin a bunch of meat.
The best backyard charcoal version is the Weber Smokey Mountain (WSM) which is high quality and generally easy to use by comparison.  Meat is placed on 2 layers of racks and the lower rack can only be accessed by removing the upper rack.  Seems like a bit of a hassle.

A gas smoker is a nice compromise between the two - consistent easy temperature control with a flame.  I ran a natural gas line to our deck for our Weber Genesis grill which I love but no one makes a natural gas smoker so I was in for a conversion project no matter what I picked.  I was very close to getting the WSM and After Burner conversion kit but decided the inconvenience of how you load it and the lack of enough venting on the lid it was not ideal.  The fridge style was much easier to load and Sam's sells a version with 2 burners for even more heat control as well as a large door with a window to see what's going on.  As a smoking newbie, being able to see the smoke and meat as it cooks seems like a great advantage.  So I ordered the Smoke Hollow Dual Burner PS4400.  I'll convert it to Natural Gas once it arrives.