Newbie Time...

[werwin]

 Hey all did the intro  but if you didn't see i'm Tony. Just got my Bradley Smoker bought used from a friend and  am dying to use it.
Really want to smoke cheese but with outside temps right now around 80-90 degs don't know if it's gonna work.
Anyway have a few questions after  stalking around your great board i didn't see what i was looking for so i thought i would ask.
Thinking of getting a igrill thermometer or some type of bluetooth setup would be great since i hope to be using year around.
But a few question on this matter  when you place a probe for inside temp where should it be placed? bottom near the heat? middle top rack? I also like the fact you can upgrade  and watch 4 temps. does it matter where your meats ar placed? if i'm doing just a bottom round beef should it be close to the heat or away from it? same with chicken or pork if i'm not filling the entire smoker how should the meats be placed? While on this i would think your chicken should be lowest on the racks when doing more then one rack  cause of drippings is this correct?
Is rotation  something i should do? If i'm doing ribs should the bottom rack be move to the top some time through out the process?
Don't want to make this a big read and loose your interest  so i'll stop here and wait for some replies  and think of more to ask
Thank you all and again great message board
Tony

[Mr Walleye]

Hi Tony and welcome to the forum

I'll try to answer some of your questions. I don't have the iGrill thermometer so I can't comment on it but I will say you definitely want a thermometer to monitor both the cabinet temperature and the meat for sure. As far as where to place the probe to monitor the cabinet goes you want to measure the temperature that the meat is being exposed to so placing the probe below the meat is ideal. Certainly you don't want the meat dripping constantly on the probe so place it slightly off to the side or front as opposed to the back where the heat element is located. Lots of guys drop the probes down the vent hole but I prefer to simply close the door on the probe wires as it makes rotating the racks easier.

As far as placement of the meat goes I typically don't use the bottom rack unless I need the room such as doing a full load of ribs. When doing multiple racks you definitely want to rotate them, front to back and top to bottom. Once you use it a few times you'll quickly get the hang of it. When I'm doing a single rack I typically use the 2nd from the bottom or third from the bottom rack.

You also want to place the meat on the rack in such a fashion that it won't be touching the sides or allowing grease to run down the walls of the cabinet especially the back wall as the heating element is located there. Keep a reasonable amount of space between the pieces of meat on the rack as well.

Doing cheese in hot weather is definitely difficult but certainly a number of members have found ways to do it. Having the cold smoke attachment would help for sure and a lot of guys run a large bowl of ice where the water bowl would normally go and also on the lowest rack to try and keep the temperature down. Make sure you set up the smoker in the shade as well and don't be afraid to prop the door open a half inch or so to maintain the ideal temperature. There is lots of smoke so loosing some won't be a problem. You could run a test run to see if you able to maintain 80 or 90 degrees without going any higher prior to loading cheese in.

Mike

[beefmann]

welcome aboard

you may also want  to  check out the tappecue 4 probe thermometer, its wireless, runs over  wifi and has apps for  both  ios and android,   nice item is you can  even be over at a  friends house and  use there wifi and still read your  tappecue, quite a  nice  unit

http://www.tappecue.com/

[werwin]

  Have few other questions after reading through  #1 is more then 2 thermometer probes best? should there be one in each rack of meat you are cooking?
#2 what is this 321 method i keep hearing about?
Is there a good place online to buy supplies?
Thanks
Tony

[Mr Walleye]

Hi Tony

1) IMHO I would say at minimum 2 temperature probes is best. You want one to measure the cabinet properly and the other to keep an eye on your meat without opening the door.

2) The 321 method of cooking ribs is 3 hours of smoke, 2 hours wrapped in foil, and 1 hours naked to set the sauce and/or firm the meat. This is really a starting point and many people modify the times for their personal taste. Here's a thread discussing it. It is 14 pages long but it has lots of information. There is a ton of additional information on the forum on ribs and all the different tips, tricks and techniques. Just do a search using "ribs" and you'll have tons of reading. http://forum.bradleysmoker.com/index.php?topic=10182.0

I can't help you much on supplies, I'm a Canuck!  ;D

Mike