Food Smokers and Smoking Tips/Tricks/Techniques

Speaking of potatoes, I will have to try this method...

Or Hasselback potatoes: https://www.foodfunandhappiness.com/2013/07/secret-to-cutting-hasselback-potatoes.html

 

I'd let them season first.

 

I’ve always been told not to burn any green wood. Let it season. Not sure if it’s legit but I always erred on the side of caution.

 

Myron Mixon uses green peach wood religiously. Never tried it myself but hard to argue with his track record.

 

Turkey breast on the traeger.

 

Buttdate - butt has been pulled from oven. Suuuuper juicy and tender. Wrapped in some more foil and towels and in the cooler until dinner time

 

I caught it and was going to say something, but can’t remember why I didn’t.

Some do, but I prefer seasoned wood.

this.

Glad it turned out for you. Sorry for your troubles. It shouldn't be this hard.

 

What temp did you get it up to? You going for pulled or chopped?

 

Pulled! About 200

 

Ya win some ya lose some. Just glad I was able to salvage this piece of meat. I know others aren’t always that lucky. I may have sneaked an early bite to taste test and it was goooood

 

Nice. I leave mine in the cooler for about two hours and it turns out great.

 

Going to grab a few beers with a buddy and then will likely pull it when I get home. My NYE butt I think took an hour cooler nap and turned out really good too. Pulled pork tacos for dinner!

 

So the wife wants pork ribs out of the smoker next. So I will be firing up the WSM this weekend.

Couple questions- fill the water pan, or run it dry and wrapped in foil? I know it serves as a heat deflector, but isn't the idea of the water to act as a heat sink? I know Harry Yoo says run Jr dry, but I am not at his level. So I need all to be weighed in my favor.

Is the 3-2-1 rib process applicable to pork as well? Ie, 3 hours on the smoke, 2 hours in the crutch (foil wrap with liquid- and what kind?), then unwrapped back on the smoke for an hour.

Wife got me a big box of smoking chips for Christmas. I have maple, peach, apple ,and cherry chips to chose from. I also have oak hunks I can use as well. Which should work best for pork ?

Plan is to rub them with Pitfaced, one spicy one regular. I'm drooling already. .

 

Water will help control the temps, keep them low. Its hard to get the wsm over 240 with water in the pan. For your first time, I’d say fill it up. Then you can work towards not using it after you learn how the controls work on it. What type of ribs, spare or baby back? Baby back would be 2-2-1. Wood, I’d go apple and cherry. Try to get away from the chips in the future and use chunks. They last longer, and you don’t have to add them as much. Normally, 2-4 chunks is plenty for the entire smoke.

Charcoal, you won’t need to fill the basket, 1/2 should be more than plenty.

When you foil, and more rub, maybe brown sugar, and some liquid, you dont need much. I use apple juice.

Good luck

 

Damn man. I'm a huge fan of my Traeger but watching what you're going through makes me feel like either I'm really lucky or their products aren't quite what they used to be. I know you've been back and forth both here and with customer service, but are you quite sure that you have ruled out operator error? Ask around here - I screw up plenty, so I hope you don't think I'm doing anything more than trying to help!

As above, 2-2-1 for baby backs, 3-2-1 for St Louis. I don't have my WSM any more and I never got good with it, so I'll leave the rest to the pros.

I use a maple-hickory-cherry blend for just about everything. So long as your rub is Pitfaced and your smoke is thin and blue, you will be just fine!

 

I'm glad you saved your butt. I hope you have better luck with you next pooper.

 

My go to recipe, but I may be biased.

http://www.pitfacedbbq.com/competition-ribs.html

 

100% sure not operator error. I don’t know what else I could possibly do. I clean the grill after every use. My pellets in this smoke were BRAND NEW I literally cut open the bag this morning to put them in the hopper. I made sure there was no air bubbles in there by stirring the hopper every 45 mins. Always had pellets in to keep it half full at minimum. Temperatures outside were mid 60s. No wind. I can’t think of a single possible thing I’ve done wrong. Did the initial firings as instructed per the manual. It just seems these 20 series are garbage.

 

GMG