Good show, you are all most ready to smoke. Don ----- Original Message ----- From: Mike Rusk To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, June 25, 2007 1:31 PM Subject: [BlindHandyMan] Smoker saga update
You can delete if not interested in reading my continuing adventure as a smoker. On Saturday I ventured to my local Ace hardware and purchased some wax fire starters. I am not sure that is what I really want to use but have used them when I had my wood burning fireplace. I also acquired a bag of cherry wood logs. I returned home and taking my oil out, proceeded to coat the parts as per manufacturer's instructions. I put some charcoal in the fire box, made a hole in the middle, placed in a chunk of my wax starter and proceeded to light matches. After the fourth attempt to light the wax, I resorted to placing the hunk of wax in a paper lunch bag and lit my fire. When the fire was going good, I closed the lids to the fire box and main chamber. I had both the smoke stack and damper open wide. After a while I checked to see if the chamber was heating, it was. So, now I know that I only need fire in the fire box and no need to have fuel burning in the chamber. Just as I was about to track down my wife for a temperature check she appeared to see what I was up to. My temperature was hovering about 175. She remarked that I should have removed the grates from the fire box as it would be easier to add fuel. Being a reasonable man I agreed and retrieved my work glove from the house and slipping it on the right hand grabbed the first of the two grates. Ouch! some loud cursing, a little dance and the grate dropped to the cement. Now I am a real fast thinker, and realizing the situation, I quickly grabbed the second grate and dropped it immediately to the cement. Then I removed the glove, having some sense, and thrust the poor finger in my mouth. A trip to the kitchen sink to run cold water over the injury, i made note to buy more appropriate gloves. Now I added some more charcoal and played with the damper and smoke stack trying different adjustments. After about 3 hours of heating the chamber, we regreased the cooking grates and I added more charcoal and one of the cherry logs to try and get the heat above 200. Now, you guys realize from my earlier statements that I am a thinking man. I decided that while the thing was hot, while I was using one of my prized pieces of cherry wood, I would put the beast to use. I took some left over ribs that the wife had cooked in the crock pot, made a sort of foil basket around them and placed them in the smoker. After about an hour, during which time the temperature actually made it to 250, I removed the left overs. They were nice and hot and best of all, had a wonderful smoked flavor. So now, I consider myself a beginner smoker instead of a newbee. I learned something about the grill-smoker. While i didn't use the fire building method I had hoped to use, I am ready to get some meat and when time permits, do some real smoking. I am also going to be looking for the right gloves and testing my meat thermometer to see if it will help me get it right. Still would like to figure out how to monitor the temperature without sighted help, but I know that the way I was doing it this time allowed me to keep the heat around 200 to 250 and that seems close to the recommended temps. Oh, by the way, no blisters and the fingers aren't quite as tender as they were Saturday night. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
