I did two smokes over the Memorial Day Weekend. One to have guests at our house on Sunday and one to take to a Party on Memorial Day. Since these were the 4th and 5th smokes on my new 3D and I had some temp variations when I did a pork butt so I wanted tomeasure the temps and see how accurate the Smokin-It temp was. I put a Thermapen probe in at about the same height of the Smokin-It probe. You can see it in one of the pictures.
Both smokes were baby back ribs, Sunday 5 racks, Memorial Day 4 racks. All settings were 235 for 5 hours, 3 oz of Apple wood each day. About 8 oz of beer in a mini loaf pan each day
I put a dry rub on each set of ribs the night before (5 racks on Saturday night and 4 racks on Sunday night) wrapped them in plastic wrap and refrigerated them for ~12 hours. I removed the ribs about 1 1/2 hours before smoking, peeled off the plastic wrap and let them warm to close to room temperature.
The attached files show the temperatures for both smokes, where I placed the Thermapen Temperature probe and then the ribs with rub and finished after about 5 hours of smoking.
Lessons
Very consistent temp
Smoke starts to be visible in about 10 minutes
It takes about an hour to an hour and a quarter for the box temp to hit the setting of 235
I think I could have pulled the ribs at 4 and 3/4 hours
Ambient temp were consistent both days but since I started one at 10AM it was a bit cooler in the box on Memorial Day
