Newbie Tempature Question

[chronos]

I was lucky enough to get a bradley stainless steel smoker for my birthday and I love it. The ribs I made came out well but the london broil and venison roast came out dry. I am unsure how to handle the tempature in a smoker.

I set the temp to 200 on the outside door thermometer and let stuck an electronic thermometer into the meat. After about 2.5 hours the meat is at 180 degrees, which is well done but the recipe says to go for 3.5 to 4 hours. Is the goal to get the meat to the right tempature at the end of the time frame, or is it okay to have it that hot for a longer period fo time due to the water and smoke?

Also, when the recipes call to preheat the smoker to a certain temp, I assume that's real internal temp and not the door temp. Is that correct?

Thanks,

Jerry

[MallardWacker]

Jerry,

First of all preheat is just something to get the BS up to temp and heat all the internal parts to so it can come up to smoking temp quicker and shorten your cooking time.  It is not super critical on what tmp it is at but I would put it over 225--as you know it will change quick after you put the meat in.

Second I would always go by internal temp for doness and not by cooking time.  Not for sure went wrong there  ut that London Broil just doesn't have that much fat in it to keep it moist for too long-my humble opinion.  Also I would use the top two racks for this.

Thirdly I would use another thermometer to see what my smoker temp is, the door therm has been noted to be way off at times.

Hang in there man...Have a great weekend.


SmokeOn,

mski
Perryville, Arkansas
Wooo-Pig-Soooie

If a man says he knows anything at all, he knows nothing what he aught to know.  But...

[Oldman]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">After about 2.5 hours the meat is at 180 degrees,<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">I don't know how big your piece of meat was but in 2.5 hours that tells me your box was way-way to hot!

As Duck Man said, whatever you do DON'T trust that door therometer. IMO it is just an ornament!

Someone gave me one of these and I just drop the probe down through the vent.


Chez sells this type for about $29.00. http://www.chezbubba.com/cart/index.html
It has no off/ on switch so I just pull the battery out of it when I'm finish. Most would use it to keep an eye on the meat temp. I use it to know what the box temp is.

There are units out there with 2 probes. One for meat the other for the box. Also if you don't have Bubba pucks you need to get 3 of them from Chez. They will be the last you load and what they do is to push the last wood puck off of the burner when it is done.

I think 3 are around $22.00.

If you do business with Chez you are better off calling him as that way your shipping is cheaper as he does not have to pay PayPal charges.

May I further suggest that the next time you have lean beef that you ask the butcher to sell you some beef fat (normally it is very cheap) and then place it on the top rack so it drips down and helps to keep your meat from drying out. Some use bacon but IMO that does not go well with beef.

However, bacon does go well with pork. Let me share this with you while I'm running my mouth~~![:D] Get a good quality bacon. Thick sliced. Stack them two high and smoke them for 2 hours ONLY at 180-190 F. Let them cool and then place in zip lock type of bag and then into the refrig.. Wait at least one day before you eat it. The next time you want bacon and eggs finish frying up some of that partly cooked bacon.... Ya it is cheating but the eating makes the cheating worth while!

As I said I believe your unit was way to hot given the time it cooked.

Anyway welcome to the boards, and please stay in touch~~! [:D]

Olds

[bsolomon]

I like to pull newbies out of the Bradley when they reach an internal temperature of 98.6 degrees, then at least two hours of FTC and I find they are very tender...

(sorry, I just couldn't resist the title [:D])

[chronos]

Thank you all for your responses. I really appreciate it. Very informative and helps me tremendously. I am having a great time learning  smoking and even the ones I mess up are still decent to eat.

Thanks!

Jerry

[Phone Guy]

If you are using lean meat you will definately need a digital temp probe. If in doubt go on the extreme rare side.

[JJC]

Welcome to the Forum, Jerry.  You can tell this is a great place for advice . . . keep sharing your experiences with us.

John
Newton MA