First Time Smoking

[tabocat]

Hello from Vancouver, BC.  I smoked some ham, mild italian sausages and ribs yesterday and they turned out great!  I used a mixture of hickory and mesquite pucks.  Total smoke time of 5 hours and finished off the ribs in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  I have the original bradley smoker, here are my questions...

1. I used apple juice as a baste and paul's famous rub.  How come the ribs are rough and not soft to the bone?  Any recommended bastes recipes?
2. The italian sausages are very oily, isn't the smoke suppose to dehydrate the oils?
3. Do you need to apply any rubs to the ham prior to smoking?  I understand that the ham already comes salted.  I want to add more flavours other than just olive oil.
4. The temperature control is very poor, just low to high.  It doesn't have a thermostat to keep the temperature consistent.  I'm guessing the middle is 200 degrees F?

Here is what I discovered as this is my very first time...

1. Food tastes better if you mix the pucks, lots of flavour.  Five hours of smoking doesn't use alot of pucks!
2. Use olive oil on the meats
3. You should cut the ham into chunks, it will smoke faster and have more flavour than smoking it whole.
4. Raw meats that takes longer to cook should be on the bottom trays.

Tabo

[Habanero Smoker]

tabocat;
Welcome to the forum.

1. I used apple juice as a baste and paul's famous rub.  How come the ribs are rough and not soft to the bone?  Any recommended bastes recipes?
I don't mop my ribs, and still get moist tender ribs. Iceman has a great thread, giving detail instructions on how to smoke/cook ribs. Just cook low & slow, and make sure the meat has pulled from the bone until you see about 1" of bone showing.

2. The italian sausages are very oily, isn't the smoke suppose to dehydrate the oils?
It sounds like you cooked them to an internal temperature higher then 152°F, keep the internal temperature below that.

3. Do you need to apply any rubs to the ham prior to smoking?  I understand that the ham already comes salted.  I want to add more flavours other than just olive oil.
I don't apply rubs to hams, but I have only done hams I have cured myself. There is no reason why you couldn't. I would just avoid rubs that contained salt. If you want to cure your own, you need to purchase a fresh ham. There is a thread that goes into how to do this. I don't have time to locate that thread. When I log back on, if someone hasn't already posted the thread, I'll find it for you later.

4. The temperature control is very poor, just low to high.  It doesn't have a thermostat to keep the temperature consistent.  I'm guessing the middle is 200 degrees F?
You should get a temperature device that can monitor your cabinet temperature. Most of us use the Maverick ET-73. That will give you a better reading of the cabinet temperature, and also monitor your meat temperature. I'm not sure if the BS has a thermostat, or if it is just a simply rheostat. So a lot of your temperature setting is dependent on the load, ambient temperature, and weather conditions. For better temperature control, some of us have purchased a temperature control device called the Raptor/Guru, and other's have built their own which is called a PID.

[Mr Walleye]

Habs, is this the thread regarding hams you are refering to?

http://forum.bradleysmoker.com/index.php?topic=4376.msg39237#msg39237

Mike

[Habanero Smoker]

Mike;
Thanks for posting that link.

Tabobcat;
Here is the link to Iceman's way to do ribs:
http://forum.bradleysmoker.com/index.php?topic=5010.msg45516#msg45516