Just got my first smoker

[MileHighGrowler]

(12-18-2020, 11:41 AM)michaelsean Wrote: I’m 53 and just starting so I think I’m pretty fortunate to have by chance purchased a pellet smoker. In Oct when I bought it I had zero idea how smoking worked. I think I half thought the smoke did the cooking like curing or something, but had I thought about it I’d realize that was stupid. I do like the fact that it’s closer to wood burning in the the heat and the smoke come from the same source.

I think if I smoke enough over the years to where cooking the meat and telling when it’s time to wrap or when it’s finished in conjunction with a thermometer instead of total reliance on a thermometer them maybe I’ll be ready to try a stick burner.  Tackling learning how to smoke along with learning how to run a fire at the same time is more than I want.

I did do by brisket For exams style although I did sneak some garlic powder in with the salt and pepper. I bought some peach/pink butcher paper because that seems to be all the hype now, but when that runs out I’ll probably just use foil.

Nothing at all wrong with adding a little garlic powder to that brisket!  Putting a little celery seed on there with salt and pepper is favored by a few people I know.  For pork butts and ribs I'll expand the seasoning a bit more and like to use some yellow mustard as a base.  Anything beef I keep to pretty much SPG (brisket, beef ribs, chuck roast).  Poultry it just depends what I'm going for.  

What kind of wood are you using?  

If you got one of those big rolls of paper it'll last a long time.  And I'd recommend sticking with paper over foil on briskets at least.  For ribs, I like to use a 3-2-1 method often (3 on the smoker, 2 wrapped, 1 unwrapped again with some bbq sauce to caramelize on the meat).  The foil is airtight so it basically steams the meat inside, where the paper allows some moisture to escape so you don't ruin the bark by making it soggy.  The foil works for the pork ribs because they still get the time at the end with the sauce to get the outer texture I want.  But since it takes hours to develop the right bark on a brisket, it's harder to maintain if you wrap it in foil for hours.