Cleaning The Smoking Unit

[Skipystu]

Hello all, Happy 4th-o-July.  ;D

Over the 3rd and into the 4th I smoked 3 racks of ribs, 1 pork butt, and 1 pork picnic. I always use one butt and one picnic as the butts tend to be lean around me and the picnics are covered in fat and cheap!

So the ribs went from 12:30pm-9: 30pmish - 4 hours smoke, then wrapped in foil for the remainder. FTC for a few hours and then into the fridge for the night. Grilled them up in front of the guests for a little effect! :-)  (I used a pork rub on half and a chipotle cinnamon on the other. Sprayed them with Apple Juice and Jack Daniels 1 to .5)

Butts went in about 9:30pm, smoked about 4 hours then let the fat just drip and I slept! Ha! They were done around 3pm on the 4th, just hitting 191 when I took them out. Let them FTC for about 2 hours and then I pulled apart the goodness. (I used a garlic pepper rub from BJs and some added garlic. Sprayed it with the Apple Jack mix.)

Let me just side step here for a moment. I made two cups of apple and one of Jack to cook with. I then made three cups apple and 1.5 Jack for the guests to use as breathe freshener. For those looking for a strong and fun oddity, sprayer full of this mix doesn't last long and makes people laugh!  ;)

Ok, back to the cookin and the reason I am bragging to this point.  :-\  It was not until the morning of the 4th that I noticed the OBS was not properly situated on the table. It was leaning a good deal towards the smoker element. Seems my wife had distracted me enough with location or proper setup  :'( that I missed it and well the smoker element has ended up filled with melted fat! I think most of it dripped out overall but I am sure there is still some in there.  ???

I was wondering everyone's take on if I should continue to use it? Just run the smoker for a few hours at a high temp to try and melt any remaining fat out? Or just buy a new smoker element?  ???

Thanks everyone and I hope you all had happy smoke flavored 4th-o-Julys!  :D

Rubbish

P.S. Sorry about not having any photos - it all went so fast and smelt so good no one wanted to pause to take pictures!  :-*

[CLAREGO]

i would take it off and be very careful with it and wip her down. i think they changed them from bulbs to something else. put it back together i would think it would work

[Skipystu]

Well I wiped the parts I could reach down and now I have it leaning the other way! I have to do 6 racks of ribs today for a party tomorrow. People who had my 4th-o-July ribs now want me to bring them to every party they have! sigh .. oh to be loved!  ;)

I am hoping that since I am just letting the smoker warm up and stay that way for about an hour it should melt anything left in the smoke unit and just drip out the bottom! It doesn't look like much got into the area where the wood is pushed out of the black box and onto the heat plate. So with fingers crossed it should work out ok, *knock on wood*

I will try and take pics this time! :-)

Skippy

[Habanero Smoker]

If you have the OBS, you should either keep it level, or raise the front end about 1/4" higher than the rear. You should avoid having anything run out of the front of the smoker. That is were the electronics are located, which regulate the heating element. If moisture or grease drips down into that area, you could fry out your circuit board.

[Skipystu]

I don't really know if frying the circuits is such a bad thing .. means I could upgrade to the 6 shelf unit!  ;D

[Arcs_n_Sparks]

I don't really know if frying the circuits is such a bad thing .. means I could upgrade to the 6 shelf unit!  ;D

Arcs_n_Sparks will provide this upgrade path at minimal cost........   :D

[Stickbowcrafter]

Heed Habs advice. After having my OBS apart to install a TS, I saw how vulnerable the circuit board and wiring are there in the front.

-Brian