First Time out

June 11, 2011 - After much reading, I decided that I would do three types of meat; ribs, chicken and sausage. With all the reading I did, these seemed like the three easiest meats to do and since it was my first time out, I wanted to play it a little safe.

I began prepping the ribs around 8:30am. I knew that the ribs would take the longest to cook, so I decided to do those first. I got my ribs at Hy-Vee grocery store. I purchased two racks of Hormel Baby Back Ribs, weighting 3.21 and 3.31 pounds.

I used two types of rub on the ribs, one rack with Smokin' Guns BBQ (a BBQ restaurant and caterer in North Kansas City) rub (mild) and one rack with Plowboys Yardbird rub (made for pork, but great on chicken). I had pre-determined that one rack would be given a light coating of BBQ sauce, mainly at the request of my wife. We had chosen Head Country BBQ sauce, and we were amazingly surprised of its flavor.

Here is picture of the ribs after I seasoned them.

I allowed these to rest for two hours at room temperature. The moisture in the meat really came out and they marinated quite well. The other interesting note here is that I had read (and observed from my cousin) that prior to applying the rub, applying a thin layer of yellow mustard to the meat allows for the rub to stick better and create a nice crust. The yellow on the ribs is that mustard.

At around 10am, I began to prepare the smoker. I used a charcoal chimney to start several briquets (Kingsford).

I then placed a layer of unlit coals in the bottom of the smoker and poured the lit coals over top of the unlit coals.

I then put two fist sized chunks (plus a little extra) of apple smoke wood on the coals and allowed it to start smoking (about 10 minutes). After the wood was smoking, it was time to put the ribs on the smoker.

Once I got the temp locked in where I wanted it (around 225-230 degrees F) it was time to sit back and relax.

Below is a chart of temps and times throughout the prcoess

Coals on at 10:40am

Wood on at 10:55am 230 degrees

Meat on at 11:15am 215 degrees

12:30 225 degrees Air Temp - 76 degrees

1:30 250 degrees Air Temp - 79 degrees

2:15 240 degrees Air Temp - 79.5 degrees (this was the first flip)

3:30pm 230 degrees Air Temp - 80.6 degrees

4:15pm - Ribs came off

While preparing and cooking the chicken/sausage, I wrapped the rib racks in aluminum foil and put them in my oven at a keep warm temp of 170F so as not to continue the cooking process.

Next, it was time to prepare for the chicken and sausage. I smoked two whole chickens that were halved as well as several Italian sausages. The chickens and sausages were purchased at McGonigle's Meat Market, a local grocer in south Kansas City. They are known for their outstanding meat selection, and they didn't disappoint. Since the Weber Smokey Mountain has two grates, you can smoke quite a bit of meat during a single session. In this one, I probably made a slight error in putting the sausage on the lower grate, while smoking the chicken on the upper rack. Given chicken fat drippings, etc...but, since then, I have flipped things around and cooked the chicken on the lower grate and sausage on the upper grate.

With the chicken, I seasoned with the Plowboy's seasoning and for the sausage, well, they don't need any seasoning.

I used pecan smoke wood for this part, and again, I put the wood on for about 10 minutes before the meat to allow it to start to smoke. The chicken went on at 4:28pm at a temp of 240 degrees.

The chicken was on for about an hour and 15 minutes until the internal temp registered 160 degrees with a meat thermometer. I then took down the smoker to the base (removed the sausage). I then put a layer of BBQ sauce on the chicken and flipped it skin side down so that it would crisp up a bit. This only took a minute or so.

The final product(s) were delicious.