Hello from Kansas

[joshvail]

I recently purchased the Bradley original. So far I am up in the air with this smoker. I am used to cooking on charcoal and wood so I am just having some trouble getting used to it. I put some ribs on today and they were very tender but the flavor was not so sweet. I think I like the smoke smell so much that I put to much smoke, they were a little bitter, and the bark was a little much. Any tips would be great!

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[tskeeter]

Josh, what flavor pucks you use will affect your ribs.  For most of the things I smoke, including ribs, I prefer to use apple because I like a lighter smoke.  I did try cherry chips when I was using another smoker, and found they were even sweeter than the apple.

The conventional wisdom here (and not everyone agrees) is that most meat won't take on more smoke flavor after about 4 hours or so.  And we're talking about large, thick cuts of meat, like pork shoulder, that gets smoked for that long.  For thinner cuts of meat, like ribs, I use about two 1/2 hours of smoke.

If you drop down to the meat forum, 10.5 put together a rib tutorial that is pinned at the top of the forum.  You might find some helpful information in that thread.

By the way, the folks here are really good about helping sort out the challenges that you encounter and can offer really great advice.  (One of the advantages of all being using the same equipment.)  So, the more details you can provide about the process you used, the more specific and on target their advice can be.

[TedEbear]

I've seen some BBQ competitions on TV where they squirt on some honey, butter and sprinkle some brown sugar on the ribs right before they seal them in foil for the second part of the 3-2-1 cooking process.  I'm sure that would make them taste sweeter if that's what you want.