My wife bought me a Chargriller Smokin Champ for my birthday!
Going to smoke my first set of ribs tomorrow. Been looking at a lot of tutorials online and think I got the process down okay.
Rub, wrap, refrigerate, get the smoker to 250, mop it every hour, wrap it in foil after 3, finish it with sauce.
Also smoking a few fatties too, wrapped in bacon. I'm so fucking excited. Tomorrow is my birthday too.
Welp, it wasn't exactly a disaster, but it didn't go well.
-despite waiting till the coals were white, the wood kept catching fully on fire. Closing all the vents didn't help, nor did spraying water made it worse. Everything burned super quick and I had to get my wife to bring me more hickory on her way to the house.
-tried soaking the chunks first but it only slightly delayed the burning.
-temperature kept wildly varying from 180 to 325 as I tried to manage the heat and opened the smoker to adjust, etc.
-hardly any smoke at all throughout the process.
-the fatties and ribs cooked for 5-ish hours and while fully cooked, the ribs weren't tender AT ALL.
Really frustrated and feel like I spent half of my birthday fucking up some beautiful ribs and getting a sunburn.