New SS OBS owner

[rbentle2]

Just picked up a stainless OBS from Cabelas. The sales guy was cool and gave me the sale price from last week ($299) since they were out of the black model. Bought the jerky racks, the 60pack of bisquettes and some 19mm collagen casings for some snack sticks as well. Hopefully tomorrow I can get the garage cleaned up enough to season it and then let the games begin.

Do you think snack sticks would be a good first thing to try smoking? Or should I go with a couple of chickens?

Bob

[KyNola]

Bob,
welcome to the forum and the Bradley world.  Not sure what the heck 19mm collagen casing for snack sticks are but I probably wouldn't try something that adventurous on your first time out on any smoker.  I think you should get to know your equipment first.  First thing I smoked was pork steaks.  Ask some of the veterans on this forum for their advice.  They are a wealth of information.

Enjoy your Bradley, I love mine!
KyNola

[rbentle2]

Thanks for the welcome KyNola. The collagen casings are sausage casings, just a small diameter best for snack sticks or breakfast sausage links.

I'm just so pumped to try out the new smoker, I can't decide what to do first. But from the reading I've done on the forum, it will take time to learn. So I guess it's best to stick to the easy stuff first. I've had a charcoal smoker for a number of years, but have only done pork butts, ribs, briskets on it. Never tried anything else due to it's layout. I like the Bradley for the vertical design. And being a fan of jerky, I"m sure I'll use it a lot for that.

[Gizmo]

I have not made the snack sticks yet but it is on my want list and has been for some time, so I can't make a recommendation there.  The posts on stuffing sausage here (and from what I have read) seem to be a bit complicated to get a great product so from that, I would suggest a pork butt or chicken.  Chicken skin from the BS is not very edible (rubbery) so if you want to eat the skin, you will want to consider finishing on the grill or oven to crisp the skin.  The stuffed chicken rolls from the recipe site is a favorite here.  

One of my first smokes was ribs.  There are many posts here from folks just starting out that they were not impressed with their first attempt or two at ribs.  I have been doing ribs for many years with many different cooking techniques so I was very pleased with the results I received (including the fact that I didn't have to stack and unstack 4 grill racks in the water bullet smoker).  

[rbentle2]

Stuffed chicken rolls......I know what my first item to make is.  ;D

[Wildcat]

Since you are familiar with briskets already, you may want to give one a try in the BS when you get the chance.  You will be surprised at the difference.  Just remember that the BS will take longer.

[hillbillysmoker]

I did Olds recipe for bacon wrapped chicken rolls for my first smoke and have repeatedly used the recipe since.  It is quite simple, rather fool proof and absolutely delicious. Here is the recipe link if you are interested.

http://www.susanminor.org/forums/showthread.php?t=43

[KyNola]

Just did 12 of the bacon wrapped stuffed chicken breasts this past weekend.  Pounded the boneless skinless chicken breasts flat, laid proscuitto and provolone cheese on them, rolled them up and encased in bacon.  Put one hour and 40 minutes of applewood smoke at about 215 degrees and then roasted until the internal temp hit 165.  Man were they good and looked beautiful.  That recipe is a sure winner!

[NePaSmoKer]

Just picked up a stainless OBS from Cabelas. The sales guy was cool and gave me the sale price from last week ($299) since they were out of the black model. Bought the jerky racks, the 60pack of bisquettes and some 19mm collagen casings for some snack sticks as well. Hopefully tomorrow I can get the garage cleaned up enough to season it and then let the games begin.

Do you think snack sticks would be a good first thing to try smoking? Or should I go with a couple of chickens?

Bob

Welcome rbentle2

The snack sticks will be easy to do, cant beat them collagen casings either, i use them alot myself.

nepas

[rbentle2]

Just did 12 of the bacon wrapped stuffed chicken breasts this past weekend.  Pounded the boneless skinless chicken breasts flat, laid proscuitto and provolone cheese on them, rolled them up and encased in bacon.  Put one hour and 40 minutes of applewood smoke at about 215 degrees and then roasted until the internal temp hit 165.  Man were they good and looked beautiful.  That recipe is a sure winner!

Man, my mouth is watering. I just got the smoker setup in the garage and will be seasoning on Saturday and then trying my luck with the chicken rolls. Good to know you can use proscuitto. I was wondering if it would be too salty.

[KyNola]

Bob,
Wasn't too salty for me.  Just use one thin slice of proscuitto and one thin slice of provolone in each roll up so as to not make it over salty.  I didn't season the chicken at all.
Enjoy! ;D
KyNola

[rbentle2]

Well, I have 8 wraps already to go tomorrow in the smoker. One question. How much should I open the vent at the top during the cooking?

[rbentle2]

Nevermind. I found the answer by using of all things, the search function.  :D

[KyNola]

Bob,
Let us know how they turned out(as if we didn't already know!).  Currently I have wild coho salmon in the DBS.  When I finish with that, I have boneless turkey breasts going in.  Hey, it's Sunday and finally raining thank God.  What better way to spend an afternoon than smoking and hydration of the cook with Rocky Mountain spring water than come in convenient 12 ounce aluminum cans. ;D

KyNola

[rbentle2]

Well, the first attempt at using the smoker is done. On a scale of 1-10, I'd give it a 6. It definitely wasn't the recipe, but my execution.

Things started off good.


I took the chicken out 30mins before putting in the smoker to warm up a tad. Started up the smoker as per the recipe instructions, filling the smoke generator with alder pucks. That's where I failed to execute.

1. I don't think I let it heat up enough. Temp was maybe 210-215. That's with the smoker generator on and the slider about 3/4 of the way to the right. Next time, I"m going to let it get hotter.

2. Over cooked the chicken. I have Polder digital timer/temp probe unit that's worked well for me in the past. But I've had problems with the temp probes. Sometimes it works and gives me accurate temps, other times it's all over the place, usually reading way off the scale (300F+). That latter is what happened with me today. So I tried the probe from a different unit I have and it seemed to work. Boy was I wrong and I should've known when I used it to check the temp of the smoker. The door thermometer was reading 210, but the probe was reading 180. I've read that the door thermo isn't that accurate, but I just never registered a 30deg diff as a problem. After an hour and 20 mins of smoking, I moved the racks around and inserted the probe into one of the breasts. Temps read 118F.

At the 2.5hr mark, the temps of the chicken still read 136-138 from the digital probe. With the temp of the smoker barely making it to 240, I threw them in a 375F oven to finish. After 25mins the digital probe was still reading only 150, so I decided to check with my instant read thermometer to double check. Damn if it didn't shoot up to 180F. Crap!  >:(

3. Under seasoned. Even with proscuitto that was thicker than I normally like it, and using a small amount of salt on the chicken, the final flavor wasn't salty enough.

4. Slice/pound out the chicken better and wrap with the bacon more securely. As you can see from the final product (below), nearly all of the cheese melted out. In the smoker, the dripping cheese was blocking some of the vents in the drip tray, as well as the center hole. Twice I had to scrape off the drip tray so the dripping fat could fall into the bowl. Because I had the door open so much, I'm sure this was a good reason for the longer cooking time.

Here's the end product.



So I know what I did wrong and can adjust for it next go around. But I'm still pleased with the smoker. It's just going to take some getting used to.