New Member needs a little help with his smoker

[Big T]

I think that's probably the best way to go, I wouldn't waste my good wood to make heat. I'm glad your test went well, be sure to post a few pics of your cook.

[agspecialties]

yah we are going to have some fun with it. It is going to be a cook off between three of us guys. Me and two of my employees.
We have pork loin and Babyback ribs and St louis ribs to cook. I will take pictuers to show off when we do it. Now i just have to find some good stuff to put on my stuff so i can win

[bluecatfish]

Sounds like you have it nailed.

[Clover Ridge Smokers]

Make sure you post pics of the cook off

[agspecialties]

guys i am trying to find a site or some recipes for some side dishes that we can try. We would like to smoke everything. Here is the deal with the smoker.
We have a cutomer day which will be on the 20th of dec this year. We will feed anywhere between 250-300 people.
Right now we are just in the planing faze. We are trying to find side dishes that we can also smoke. Any ideas would be great.

[Clover Ridge Smokers]

There are several sites that have recipes that can be made on the smokers. Have you checked out the food section on this forum? viewforum.php?f=99 Also our sister site Iron Man Cookers has some great recipes.
http://www.ironmancookers.com/

[dwwantasmoker]

What they said.

[Rev.Mike]

[Smokeone]

Franks pit beans are awesome. I don't know what all your gonna make, but I like to smoke some taters and make smoked tater salad. But you can make just about anything on a smoker, heck you can even make a fine desert too.

[agspecialties]

First a big THANK YOU to everyone who helped us out on this project.
Our first smoke was great. We started at 9 am on Saturday morning with the temp at a low 20's with a little breeze.
We started the beast with two chimneys of charcoal and with a the rest of the bag on top of the hot charcoal.
when i got a good draft going i put some oak in the FB to get it up to temp. With in an hour i had the CC up to 350 on both sides. From there i started to choke her down to maintain our heat.

We decided to cook a pork loin and six racks of ribs. Everything went really good. The ribs were awesome. The loin got a little dry in the middle. We will have to work on our loin before the big dinner. We tried a little of everything when it came to rubs and sauce.
We did a 2-2-1 on the ribs and cooked the loin for three hours. We maintain the heat around 250. Which was pretty easy to do with the smoker. I got to the point where i could bump it up of down 10 degrees if i wanted too.

Here are some more pictures of the meat that we smoked.

YES that is a bottle of Jack that you see us pouring on those ribs. We had about twenty people come over and taste the ribs and those were the favorite. Jack fixes everything i guess.

Here is a picture of the finish product and man were they tasty. This was my first smoke and i had a lot of fun doing it.

Now we just have to work on doing our loin before our big lunch in a couple of weeks. Plan is to smoke 15 pork loins. Our smoker will easily handle that.
Again a big thank you to everyone who helped us out on our build.

[Big T]

Glad we could help out. I'm sure you'll get it all figured out now that you can dial your smoker in to temp.

[Puff]

I for one think you did an amazing job... Given that one day you had a hot fire warping the steel and little to cook by...the next day you made all the changes and created a 1st cook that looks like any delicious meal like you see on TV ! Awesome, really awesome....love the pictures. AND...you can bump your temps 10 degrees at will? Awesome!

[jaybird302]

Man, that's some fine looking ribs! Glad you've got a handle on it now. Good luck on your lunch, I'm sure it'll be great!

Jay

[Gizmo]

Congrats man!

Looks like you jerked that cooker into shape for sure…

[Clover Ridge Smokers]

Nice job. Glad you were able to pull off the modifications and make some good grub.

[bluecatfish]

Awesome looking food and cooker.

[Rodcrafter]

I see you guys have done a lot of work and made this rascal do some good cooking.

I feel like I should say we didn't get to deal with the issue of the FB. I know you were able to get the temps you wanted and that is the goal or at least one of them. Remember the FB was only less than 1/2 the size recommended. I'm not trying to get you to do more work, it is just easier to tend the small fire required in the right sized FB than it is to control the fire in a too small FB. You will find that your cooker has a sweet spot so to speak for the temp it likes to run. When your FB is not the right size you will experience the temp going too high then too low or even the dreaded white smoke at times. You can leave it the way it is or when you have time, you may want to make the next change to it.

jm2cw

[agspecialties]

Well what is too cold to smoke???? I just had to find that out today. Fired up the smoker at noon today and it was -10 out.
With in half hour i had the smoker cc up to 250.
Will have pictures of loins and salmon later on.

[Big T]

-10 I wouldn't go outside !

[agspecialties]

-10 I wouldn't go outside !

That is what wireless thermo's are for. So i can sit my fat ass in the house and just look outside and look at my thermometer and go from there. Been pretty easy and as we speak its about 13 out. LOL

[Frank_Cox]

awesome job on fixing your pit! the grub looked great too!

[jaybird302]

AG, where are you located? -10 is pretty dang cold... I used to ski in -20 to -15 when I was 13, but that was when I had no fear and felt no pain..... Anyway, I'm in North Texas and it's 20 and iced over here. Makes it pretty hard to go out and work on the smoker... Anyway, good job on the smoker.

Jay

[agspecialties]

Well the day has come. Tomorrow the smoker will feed 250-300 people. We are planning on starting the smoker at 5 in the morning. Wish us LUCK. We pretty much have everything under control…….?????? We hope. Will keep you guys posted

Here are a couple of pictures.

150 lbs of pork


Here is everything ready to go.

[Smokeone]

Good luck, man!
Looks to me like you have it under control.

[Clover Ridge Smokers]

Looks good brother. Good luck tomorrow. Let the smoke roll