New Smoker Here

[dwtrees]

Hi All,

Just wanted to say hello to all of the smokers out there and I was really glad to find this forum. I bought a 4 rack digital Bradley and the first thing I tried was to smoke some cheeder cheese blocks. Needless to say they didn't turn out to well. Had plenty of smoke flavor to them but they got too hot and the cheese was "leaking". Found this site and searched for smoked cheese. Found out real quick what my problem was, didn't have the cold smoke set up and the heat from the smoke burner was enough to get the inside temp up to 90 degrees in no time at all. My next smoke attempt was a couple of pounds of cashews. Those turned out great. I made a bunch of sausage today and some summer sausage sticks. Put 10 small sticks or chubs as I saw in the post I read tonight, and turned on the oven temp to 190. Set the smoke to come on after 40 minutes, (left two pucks out). After abut 4 hours the internal temp was up to 125 degrees on the chubs and the smoke was done. That's when I found some posts about the temp the fat comes out and at the 6 hour mark my IT was at 155. I went out and backed the oven temp down to 170 like I read in some other posts and within 1/2 hour my IT was down to 145. Went back out and turned the oven back up to 180 to get the IT back up to finish the chubs but it stayed at 145 for another hour. Went back out and raised the temp up to 190 and then the IT came up and was at 153 to 155 when I pulled them out and stuck in the cold water bath until the IT was down to 100. Just waiting to taste one of them now. Letting them hang and then into the fridge for tonight.

Thanks again for all the info out there.

[Johnny]

welcome to the forum dwtrees,
You are correct! Lots and lots of great advice from experience people on here, have fun and enjoy your successes and failures ( unfortunately we all have them at times lol)
But thats how we learn ;)
Cheers,
Johnny.

[Edward176]

Welcome to the Forum dwtrees. Sounds like you had quite the experience with your smoker and that things worked out for you. As Johnny mentioned there is a great deal of knowledge and expertise here on this Forum, and associated web sights, that can guide you through any rough spot. Enjoy and have fun.

[Smoker John]

Welcome aboard

[cherrybergher]

welcome to the forum