Recent content by gmbrown

Yesterday I was smoking a turkey breast in my #3 (analog) and I had an ambient temp probe in registering temps in the 300s. As many of you know, the max setting is 250 and typically I’m lucky if the temp stays within 10 degrees of where I set it especially in cold weather. Temp never dropped...

Like most of you, any time I’ve tried smoking poultry (so far just chicken), I get soggy rubbery skin. I’m probably going to smoke a turkey breast this thanksgiving, and I’ve seen quite a few folks online say that adding baking powder to dry rubs or dry brine helps crisp up the skin. Anyone here...

Buoyed by my successes so far, I thought it was time to tackle the holy grail this past weekend: brisket. From what I've read, the main takeaway is that everyone has a different way to do it, and nobody seems to agree on what the "best" way is. The main point of agreement, however, is how tricky...

Ran three racks of baby backs through the #3 last week for my wife's birthday. A nice healthy dose of Meathead's Memphis Dust, held on with some yellow mustard, went on before the ribs took a 5.5 hour trip in the smoker with about 2.25 oz. of hickory, plus a little water pan. The result was...

Well, I've been good about posting my triumphs, so I figure it's only fair to post my not-so-great results as a warning to others. Did some Italian sausage fresh from the local grocery store, which turned out fine. But I also thought I'd try a couple of potatoes based on a suggestion from the...

This weekend's attempt at smoking goodness was a whole chicken and a pan of mac and cheese. I figured that both would take about the same amount of time, and both, of course, would fit in, so I gave it a shot. The chicken was a "minimally processed" Amish chicken from the local grocery store...

So this past weekend, I finally tried out my first major smoke attempt: Boston butt for pulled pork. Actually, ended up being about two, between 6-8 pounds each, that were packaged together in one of those giant Costco packs. I started out by brining them, using Alton Brown's recipe/method...

I decided that last weekend's run was going to be Boston butt for pulled pork. but based on a lot of factors, I ended up needing most of Saturday for them to brine, so I decided to do some fresh Polish sausage from a local grocery-store chain (Hiller's, for those of you in the Detroit area--they...

Hi, folks, I've been lurking here for a while (for research, mostly), but finally got a hold of my #3. Last summer, we bought a mass-market competitor's product, and it was DOA--didn't even heat up. So we returned it, and I did some research, and found that that was a problem a lot of people...

Hey folks, I've been lurking here for a while (for research, mostly), but finally got a hold of my #3. Last summer, we bought a mass-market competitor's product, and it was DOA--didn't even heat up. So we returned it, and I did some research, and found that that was a problem a lot of people...