first time user

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Hey,
I just assembled and seasoned my "black" today. I tried to do bacon wrapped jalapenos and pork back ribs and it was a total disaster! The recipes I found online said they should be done in 2 and 3 hours, respectively. After over 5 hours of smoking, the bacon was still soft, the jalapenos were still crunchy, and the ribs were pretty much raw.  The temp was around 250 the while time. Somebody help me out here! What went wrong?

[TedEbear]

It sounds like the actual temp might have been somewhat less than 250*F.  What were you using to check the temp with?

Also, ribs take a lot longer than 3 hours to cook.  For spare ribs there's a method called 3-2-1.  There's a thread elsewhere on the forum that goes into detail but it involves a total of 6 hours in the smoker. 

How To Make Ribs in a Bradley Pictorial

Were those bacon wrapped jalapenos also known as atomic buffalo turds?  They sell those at our annual bbq competition.  Pretty good stuff.  I've never tried to make them but it's on my list.

[devo]

250 would be very close to the top end of your smoker so unless you had it maxed out it would never get there.

Depends on how much meat you had in there also. Cold meat equals slow recovery.

Where was your vent? Open it all the way and leave it there. Mine is locked open, can't move any more. This vents out as much moisture as possible.

Anytime I have done bacon wrapped  jalapenos (ABT,s) they take at least 6 hours for the bacon to crisp up.

[beefmann]

also  if you  were doing the bacon. jalapeños and  ribs all at the  same time, that is  quite a  big load and  would  require a  longer  cook time, as a  rule of thumb cooking time for  meat in a bradley is between  1 hour and 1  1/2 hour,,, though  we cook by  temperature, also was your top   vent wide  open/?? if  not it will have an affect on how the  smoker operates, keep your   vent  open keep your top  vent  open

also welcome aboard

[KyNola]

If after 5 hours the ribs were till pretty much raw, the temperature inside the tower was nowhere near 250.  Could you please provide more detail as to how you had the Bradley set up?  What were you using to measure the temps in the tower? Was the vent open?  Are you certain your heating element was actually heating?

With more detail we can give you a better idea of what may have been going on.