sooo EXCITED

[clairbare]

Wow what a day - Big thank you to Toby BBBQsociety for giving us a great start to our smokin' - will absolutely recommend him to anyone who is starting out and needs advice and equipment.

We came away from Tongham, Surrey fully equiped for our first "proper" smoke

Currently seasoning our new baby Pro-q and have a joint of meat that is rubbed up and waiting to cook first thing tomorrow.

Been to bookers for extra bits, including restaurant grade charcoal and plenty of herbs and spices including a huge english mustard powder - can't wait to taste our first cook - will post pictures xx

Clair & Lee

[All Weather Griller]

It's plain sailing from here on in now.

You will have a great experience getting to know your smoker and it will become a part of your family.

Like you say, Toby is a great guy!

Good luck guys

Adie

[clairbare]

Roughly how much charcoal do i put in the basket for an 8lb pork neck joint?

[Steve]

Hey Clair, congrats on your new smoker, you're going to love it.

For your 8lb neck end I'd fill the charcoal basket with unlit lump wood. Fil it with big lumps, then bang it to set it nicely packed in place and fill the gaps with smaller lumps. Then light about six big lumps in your chimney starter and place them on top of the unlit fuel.

Leave the top off ofr about 5-10 minutes then put the top on with the vents fully open. As it hits about 210 close the vents up a bit and try to get it to settle around the temperature you want. Always try to catch the temps on the way up if you can.

During the cook if the temps start to drop, give the bottom of the smoker a kick to shake the ash off the coals. This is known as a Weber boot

You'll have to play over the first few cooks to get your methods nailed down but I'm sure you'll be sorted soon enough.

[clairbare]

http://s774.photobucket.com/albums/yy27 ... und%20One/

Not sure if this link will work!! Pics of our first smoke

So started the cook at 11.30am (maybe should have started earlier) lit coals in the middle (think this is the minion method but may be wrong) got smoker up to approx 210, half closed top air vent. Water pan on, lump of oak added to coal,meat in about same temp. After an hour cooking the temp started to drop (the charcoal probably wasnt the best, decided to use what i had before starting on the restaurant stuff) so we "kicked" the bottom gently cos it's our new baby

We decided to add more charcoal, this bought the temp back up - managed to maintain the same heat throughout the cook, adding more charcoal when temp seemed to reduce.

7pm meat removed, internal temp not too sure as we need to get a better meat thermometer, Wrapped meat and rested for about an hour and hey presto

Need to work on our rub and bbq sauce - but wow what a great start!

[British BBQ Society]

Looks fantastic!! if you are going to use the minion method I would avoid Briquettes and stick to lumpwood charcoal, nice smoke colouring and looks really moist.

[clairbare]

Another question - what do you all do to clean up your water pan? Unfortunately it ran dry for a little while and it got a little "caked on"

[Steve]

I never use water in my water pan, only ever a clay saucer and I wrap the water pan and saucer up in foil. Clean up is a doddle

Just saw from your post that you part closed the top vent for temperature control. It's best to not do this in future, always leave it fully open and control the temperature with the bottom vents. Without adequate exhaust you can get a build up of creosote in your smoker and your food won't benefit from that.

[clairbare]

Cleaned up the water pan and next time will wrap it in foil thanks Steve - do you have pics of how use use a clay saucer? Does it just sit in the water pan? And why use a clay saucer?

Thanks for the comment re the vents, will use the bottom ones next time which will be very soon hopefully

[Steve]

Just get a big clay saucer wrap your water pan in foil, then wrap the saucer and put it upside down in the water pan.

The reason to use clay saucer is that it's a good heatsink and that's the primary purpose of water too. The extra moisture argument is a red herring IMHO your meat will be just as moist using clay.