I’ve written before about how most bar-b-que cooks are secretive about their rub and sauce recipes. I’m not. Even if I were cooking competitively I’d tell you 99.9% of what I do. But I’m not cooking competitively (yet – I need something to save for retirement 20 years from now) so I’ll tell you 100% of how I do things and you can use my recipes as a base from which to experiment.

My wife recently had her Aunt and Uncle here in the US from Germany. For the first of several dinners I thought I’d introduce them to something uniquely American. And what’s more American then bar-b-que? I’d argue that even the Hamburger has been exported so much that it’s lost its unique American-ness. You can get a hamburger in any country in the world now. But bar-b-que? That hasn’t been exported yet.

So I decided to make real spare ribs – using a rub I’ve been working on for several months. I also did these in my Bradley smoker since I wanted to actually be able to sit and talk to my guests rather than spend my time tending a fire.

Here’s how I did it:

Smoked Pork Ribs in a Bradley Smoker

Ingredients:

• 2 racks of St. Louis cut Spare Ribs. (I buy whole cryo-vac ribs and trim them myself. See my BBQ guide for a good video link and explanation, including how to remove the membrane from the back of the slab.
• ¼ cup molasses or Grade B maple syrup
• ¼ cup BBQ sauce (I use Sweet Baby Ray’s sauce)
• 1 T Dark Brown Sugar
• 2 T Apple Cider Vinegar
• Rib Rub (see recipe in this post, about half way down the page. Basically 6 parts Brown Sugar, 3 parts salt, 1 part other spices.)

Preparation (12 to 24 hours before smoking)

1. Pat the ribs dry.
2. Mix molasses, BBQ sauce, and 2 T vinegar together until blended. Use the brown sugar to sweeten to your taste if using molasses. Probably not needed if using maple syrup. Brush the mixture over the slabs until completely covered.
3. Sprinkle rib rub liberally over the surface of the ribs.
4. Wrap in plastic wrap and place in refrigerator for at least 8 hours and up to 24.

Smoking

I used the 3-2-1 method on these ribs. Especially because I had people eating who have never had ribs before and might not appreciate the chew and pull of regular smoked ribs. I use hickory smoke as always.

1. Remove ribs from refrigerator at least 1 hour prior to smoking and let them come t room temperature.
2. Set Bradley Smoker oven temp to 220° F. Timer set for 6 hours and 40 minutes.
3. Let smoker warm up for 40 minutes.
4. Place ribs on Bradley racks.
5. Set smoke generator for 3 hours of smoke and start. (You’ll need 11 bisquettes in the tube for this).
6. After 3 hours, remove ribs from smoker and wrap in aluminum foil. I add a splash of cider vinegar to each foil pouch at this point.
7. Put foil covered ribs back in smoker for 2 hours. No smoke during this time.
8. After 2 hours, remove foil packs from smoker. Unwrap ribs and place back on Bradley racks. Be careful to reserve the liquid from the foil pouches – collect it in a small saucepan.
9. Start the smoke again for one hour (5 bisquettes).
10. While smoking, reduce the collected liquid to a glaze by heating until reduced by half. Mix this with any additional sauce or spices that you prefer. It will be the final finishing sauce.
11. After the final hour, remove the ribs from the smoker (they may fall apart at this point, so handle carefully). Brush on your reduced glaze and serve.

They were a hit! I think I may have started a German BBQ cult. Hope this recipe works for you too.

Yesterday I brought home my new Bradley Digital Smoker. Today I smoked two racks of pork ribs and a few chicken breasts as a test to start figuring out just how this works and compares to my dedicated New Braunfels Black Diamond pit.

And I’m surprised I’m even able to write this, rather than lying somewhere passed out in a food coma after eating nearly an entire rack of ribs by myself.

So the initial verdict is positive. The smoker did a very good job, providing good smoke flavor, decent temperature control, and most of all: convenience. In fact, I did something unheard of while cooking this batch. After setting up the smoker, I left home. For 4 hours. I took my daughter into Boston while I picked up something from my office. We rode the subway, had lunch, and did a little shopping. After the first three hours on the smoker, my wife wrapped the ribs in foil, and I was home before the end of the “2″ period in the 3-2-1 method. I’m positively ecstatic about this … I was able to spend four hours doing something else while making great bar-b-que. And that’s really what I was looking for.

The Technique

I used used my normal rub and the 3-2-1 technique. I really wanted to start simple, and test the smoker rather than new variations of how to cook ribs. So I purposely kept the variables to a minimum. That means I didn’t rotate the racks in the smoker, I didn’t open the door all the time to look at the cooking, and I stuck to a tried and true recipe.

The Meat

I used two full racks of pork spare ribs from BJ’s Wholesale club. I prepped them by removing the membrane and cutting them St. Louis style. These techniques, along with videos, are detailed in my beginner’s guide to bar-b-que post.

The Rub

I used a two-part rub on my ribs. It’s also described in more detail in my beginners guide post, but it’s essentially table salt and spices in the first layer, followed by a brown sugar and kosher salt top layer. I applied the rub and then wrapped the racks in plastic and set them in my refrigerator over night.

The Smoke

Smoker Setup

I set the Bradley to 250° F and let it warm up. I wanted the pit hotter than I would smoke at to help compensate for the temperature drop when I put in the meat. After letting the ribs warm up a bit (though I didn’t have enough time to let them get to room temperature). I spread the racks out on three shelves, with the rib tips up top and two racks below. I added some chicken breasts wrapped in bacon on the bottom shelf, started the smoke (setting the time to three hours) and dropped the pit temperature to 220° F. I set the timer for 6 hours and 20 minutes. And then I walked away.

(I did set a thermometer into the chicken I had put in the smoker … I wasn’t sure how long that would take and I wanted to make sure it was the right temperature.)

After three hours, My wife took the ribs out and put them in the foil along with a splash of cider vinegar. I came home when there was 1.5 hours left. Two hours after going into the foil, I removed the foil and basted the racks with a 50/50 mix of bar-b-que sauce and cider vinegar. I also added a couple more bisquettes and cranked up the smoke for another 40 minutes.

The Results

Overall I say the results were good. I got a decently smoked product with a minimum of effort. As I said, there was a decent smoke flavor, and, as usual, the 3-2-1 method all but guaranteed tender ribs. But I did notice a few differences versus smoking with hardwood.

Ribs Fresh From the Bradley

First, there was a noticeable lack of a pronounced smoke ring. There was good smoke flavor, but no ring. I assume this has to do with the electric heat versus a traditional charcoal or wood fire. With a traditional wood heat source, there is a constant low level of smoke at all times. With the electric smoker, when the smoke is off, it’s off. This is something I will have to experiment with.

Second, there was less “bark” formation than I am used to. Again I attribute this to differences in the smoke chamber conditions. I wonder if it has mainly to do with the water pan creating a higher humidity environment in the Bradley chamber, or if there is actually less moisture than over a wood fire since wood does gove off quite a bit of water when it burns. Either way, the crust on the ribs wasn’t as thick or crunchy as I am used to. Because of the difference in crust formation, I ended up with a saltier bark than I normally get when using my standard rub mix.

Finally, there was a discernible difference between the lower and upper shelf locations. The lower shelf ended up creating a rack which was far more tender than the upper shelf. So I will definitely need to rotate the rack positions during cooking.

But overall I am pleased. I got 99% of what I was seeking, which is convenience. And the rest of the issues I am sure I can work through. I’ll just have to eat a lot of bar-b-que to figure it out. Damn … [superemotions file="icon_rolleyes.gif" title="Rolling Eyes"]

Bradley 4-Rack Digital Smoker (from bradleysmoker.com)

Santa Claus was good to me this year. Several family members contributed some cash to my gift (or maybe to their future free dinners here) to help me get the next tool in my bar-b-que arsenal: a Bradley Digital Smoker (BDS). Over the years, I’ve smoked ribs and things on all sorts of equipment, from Weber Kettles to Weber Smokey Mountain and Brinkmann Smoke-N-Pit bullet smokers, to my New Braunfels Black Diamond horizontal smoker, and even my CharBroil RED gas grill. The one thing I’ve never used was an electric smoker like the Bradley or the Masterbuilt.

This is why I wanted to add one to my stable of cookers this Christmas. So, one trip to Bass Pro Shops later, I walked out with the last Digital Smoker they had (the floor model) for 10% off the sticker price.

This was not a rash decision either. Weeks of research went into this … And here is how I finally ended up with a Bradley Digital Smoker in my breezeway, waiting for the first rack of ribs which are absorbing their rub in my refrigerator right now.

Convenience

I am writing this right up front. My buying decision was not driven by economy. If you’re looking for an explanation of how to get great bar-b-que on the cheap, this isn’t it. Startup costs to bring the Bradley home are going to be greater than $500 in most cases. I could buy two full size CharBroil Silver Smokers for that price and still have money left over to buy enough pork to feed 50 people. No, this purchase is more akin to a mid-life crisis purchase: it’s about convenience. I’ve tended fires all night long and hand-cranked a whole pig on a spit over an open pit more than once. Every year I throw a summertime party where I bar-b-que shoulder for 18 hours tending the fire every 45 minutes, then catch a few hours sleep so I can wake up and start the fire again for spare ribs. I understand what it takes to make “real” bar-b-que. And I decided that I would like to enjoy the flavor of smoked food once in a while without the hassle of dragging my pit out and tending the charcoal fire for hours. The main driver of the decision to buy an electric smoker was the desire for “set it and forget it™” convenience ¹. I want to put some meat in the box, set timers and temperatures, then go in the house and watch TV for a few hours while something else worries about the bar-b-que pit temperature for me.

The Options

If you want convenience, electric or propane are your main options. Some companies like Traeger make wood pellet grills that have a pellet feed mechanism, but they can be really expensive, and they haven’t really perfected the digital controls which offer the highest level of convenience. Besides, they are all much larger than the Bradley, and I didn’t want to have to roll out the grill from the shed every time. I like something I can carry out, use, then carry back in the basement.

Within the reasonably priced electric smoker world, there are two main manufacturers: Masterbuilt and Bradley. After that decision, there is the manual or automatic (digital) control to decide. How did I decide between them? Here are some factors which put the Bradley Digital on top.

1. Stability. I read that some people felt the Masterbuilt was “tippy.” When the door was opened, a few people in message boards reported that the cabinet had tipped forward dumping their food. I got to see the Bradley and the Masterbuilt next to each other on display and after opening the doors and giving them a little tug, I can understand the difference. The Bradley feels more stable to me.
2. Heft & Build Quality. The bradley also feels heavier and more solid to me. I equate this to better insulation and therefore better heat retention.
3. External Smoke Generator. The Bradley has an external smoke generator. The Masterbuilt smoke generator is inside the cabinet. I have always wanted to cold smoke things like salmon and bacon, and this just isn’t possible when the smoke generator is built into the cabinet. Several mods can be found online for separating the Bradley smoke generator from the main cabinet to that truly cold smoking is possible.
4. Auto Wood Feed. As I said at the beginning, I wanted convenience. And the auto-feed mechanism on the Bradley promised to deliver it. In the Masterbuilt, I would still need to go and add wood chips to the smoker periodically. On the Bradley I can stack 8 hours worth of “bisquettes” (little hockey puck shaped wood discs) and walk away.
5. Digital Controls. At this time, Masterbuilt doesn’t make a grill with digital controls in a small four or six rack size. You need to move up to the 40 inch Masterbuilt smokers to get digital control. Yes, I know I could add a digital temperature control or “PID” (see sidebar) to a non-digital smoker and get even better digital control than the built-in Bradley control, but I wanted a convenient solution, not another do-it-yourself project.
6. Usable Space. Again, based on a side-by-side comparison, for nearly equal-sized cabinets, the Bradley had more space for food inside. This is mainly due to the configuration of the drip tray and smoker unit in the bottom of the cabinet.

Downsides

The one thing that stands out in the Bradley design is the use of wood “bisquettes” rather than a traditional chunk or sawdust fuel (Bradley is a Canadian company, and the spelling is a nod to the Francophone population). This is really a concession to the auto-feed mechanism. The problem of course is that one must keep a supply of the special bisquettes around, and if you run out, you’re not smoking. But these things can be mail ordered for an OK price, and the convenience of the auto-feeder overcame the objection for me. To get a sense of how this works, watch the following video. Although the smoker is the “original” version rather than the digital version, the auto-feeder is essentially the same.

I have two full racks of pork ribs in the refrigerator absorbing their rub right now, and I’ll write about my first cooking experience once I get them done tomorrow.

Notes

¹ Yes, the Ronco Acquisition Corporation has a trademark on the “set it and forget it” phrase. Search the USTPO for serial number 77476587. I’m not particularly worried about Ron Popeil or whoever bought the assets of Ronco after the latest bankruptcy suing me, rather, I hope you agree with me about the utter absurdity of someone trademarking that phrase.

Now that the weather has turned colder and the Christmas lights are hung, my mind is wandering to some real bar-b-que ribs. It’s a royal pain to haul out my Black Diamond smoker for just one rack – and tending the fire is no fun when you can’t sit outside and pay attention to it for five or six hours. So I’m looking for something that will hold it’s own temperature better than the Black Diamond.

I know that in my bar-b-que core dump post I said that grills could work in a pinch to make real bar-b-que, but they wouldn’t work as well as a dedicated smoker. Well, I’m making an exception for my grill because it is able to both hold a low temperature and generate enough smoke to do a passable job as a smoker.

Back in early 2008 I bought a new grill. A Char-Broil RED four-burner grill. One of the things I like about this grill is its ability to hold a wide temperature range. When heated on high the grates will get to almost 800°F and can sear a steak as well as any restaurant. But it can also hold a low temperature, down to 225°F which is right in the range needed for bar-b-que. The grill also has a unique design that allows the addition of wood chips so real smoke can be added to the food and no silly smoker boxes or foil pouches are needed like on other grills.

So, here’s what I do for making ribs on my grill. [NOTE: I originally posted this on my favorite message board for bar-b-que and grilling: the BBQ-source board.]

Lessons Learned:

1. The In-hood Thermometer is pretty accurate — I added my remote grill thermometer on several occasions and they seem to agree. (Note that I cook the ribs on an ELEVATED rack so this is probably not true if you cook at grill level.)
2. Extra thermal mass is a huge help in controlling the temperature. I built my elevated rack using 4 6″x6″ concrete pavers and that reduced temperature fluctuations significantly.
3. Temperature control requires a combination of burners (the two outside burners in my case) and venting of the hood.
4. Raising the ribs is critical to get them into the smoke, but even so, the grill isn’t sealed well, so more smoke may be required than in a dedicated smoker.

Method:
I typically use a variation of the 3-2-1 method where ribs are smoked for 3 hours in the open, followed by 2 hours wrapped in foil to tenderize them, followed by 1 hour in the open again to finish them. All of this is done at 225 degrees. This method results in extremely tender ribs; too tender for many people, including me. So I adjust the timing to a 3-1-.5 method.

I start with a dry rub, roughly 3 parts brown sugar, 2 parts salt, 1 part paprika, and 1 part a mixture of various things including garlic powder, onion powder, and other spices. I usually let this set on the ribs for several hours to overnight. For this smoke I used an 8 lb rack of St. Louis cut ribs that the local supermarket had on sale. I removed the membrane from the back.

I set up the grill by stacking the middle 2 grates on top of the outside grates. On this I set 4 concrete pavers (6″ x 6″), 2 on each side. I placed an old leftover rack from an old grill on top of the two paver stacks. I also added small aluminum drip pans under the grate. See the picture below:

My Grill Setup and the Finished Product

I would have wrapped them in foil, but I was running low and I wanted to leave enough to wrap the ribs. So I put a small square of clean foil between the pavers and the rack (you can’t see it in this pic taken after the whole process was done and I had disturbed everything.)

I let the whole system heat up and found that I could hold 225 degrees by using the 2 outside burners on their lowest setting and propping the hood open about 2 inches.

I followed the 3-2-1 method and the results are delicious. And the best part is that I don’t have to tend the fire every 30 minutes. Here’s a close-up of the finished product.

Finished Ribs

I grew up in New Jersey. I now live in Massachusetts. Many readers will stop right there asking themselves, “What can growing up in New Jersey teach someone about real bar-b-que?” Absolutely nothing. New Jersey in the 1970s and 1980 was utterly devoid of anything resembling real, slow-smoked bar-b-que. And modern-day Massachusetts isn’t much better. But this is the internet age and with the help and advice of many small-time pit masters on the web, I’ve managed to turn myself into a pretty decent pit jockey, if I do say so myself. For the last 15 years I’ve been perfecting my own backyard style, showcased each year for the last seven in my annual, end of summer, “Carnivore’s Carnival” where 40 or 50 friends gather in mid August to sample my specialties.

Over the years I’ve worked my way through several pieces of equipment, various recipes, and many changes in technique. This post will serve as my collected wisdom for others trying to work their way through all the issues that beginners encounter.

The Basics

Real American bar-b-que (also BBQ, barbeque) is, at its essence, simply the application of low heat to meat over a long period of time, and in the presence of wood smoke. Flavors are enhanced by applying various spices as dry rubs and wet sauces. All of the components are necessary: with high heat instead of low it’s grilling and without smoke it’s just roasting. As a cooking form native to many parts of the country, there are many regional bar-b-que variations which use different cuts of meat and different spice rubs. The most common and popular of these regional variations include:

There are, of course, hundreds of additional regional sub-variations and probably millions, maybe even tens or hundreds of millions of family recipes. But these are the main themes which run through the American bar-b-que landscape.

If there was an advantage to perfecting my style in New Jersey and Massachusetts, it’s that there are no preconceived notions of what bar-b-que is. So I was able to experiment with many different styles and my friends and neighbors ate it all. Try making a pork shoulder in Texas and calling it bar-b-que or doing a beef brisket over mesquite in North Carolina and having anyone show up. I’ve been able to play with it all and no one complains that “it isn’t real bar-b-que.”

But if I had to choose a style, I’d say that I tend to like the Memphis style the best, and that’s primarily the kind of bar-b-que I’ll be discussing here. I make my ribs and pulled pork with a dry spice rub on the outside and a minimum of “mopping” (basting) while on the grill. And when finished, I use a bare minimum of a tomato-based bar-b-que sauce to finish them.

OK you ask, so how do you get started? Here’s the collected wisdom of what I do, what I did, and what I’d do differently if I started over.

The Equipment

The Meat

I would love to say that good bar-b-que requires good meat, but it doesn’t. And that’s the beauty of bar-b-que and one of the reasons it remains popular. Bar-b-que usually uses the cheapest, toughest cuts of meat available. Pulled pork, for example, uses a pork shoulder (called a “picnic ham” when the lower part is used and a “Boston butt” when the upper part is used) in the form of a Boston butt. That’s one of the cheapest cuts you can buy. Pork spare ribs (though not baby backs) are also an inexpensive cut. So is beef brisket. That’s the good news: you can feed a lot of people cheaply with bar-b-que.

For example, I just finished buying the meat for my 7th annual Carnivore’s Carnival. The bar-b-que consisted of 24.5 lbs. of Boston butt (3 shoulders) and 12 lbs. (4 racks) of spare ribs. That’s 36.5 lbs of meat with little waste or trimming, which could conservatively feed 40 people — maybe 60 if they weren’t pigs — and the total retail bill came to $98.72. Where else can you order meat for 50 people for under $100?

Pulled Pork

American Pork Cuts (adapted from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_Pork_Cuts.svg)

Pulled pork is made from a pork shoulder (the “Blade shoulder” in the diagram here). In pork terminology, the top of the rear leg is called a ham. The top of the front leg is called a shoulder. The top of each of these pieces is the butt or rump portion; the bottom near the leg or foot is the shank portion. The shoulder and ham differ primarily in the amount of connective tissue present — the ham is leaner with much less collagen and other connective bits. The shoulder is much tougher with more fat.

To confuse the issue (and certainly the consumer and their wallet), butchers began marketing the lower part of bone-in shoulders (near the “elbow” — marked as the orange “Arm shoulder” in the picture to the right) as “picnic hams,” an inexpensive cut with the “ham” name. But make no mistake: picnic ham is not a substitute for real ham. Most bar-b-que uses the “Boston Butt” or upper part of the shoulder, though a whole shoulder or even a picnic ham can be used. Whether bone-in or boneless is up to you; some people believe that the bone-in cuts have more flavor. And I find the bone a useful way to gauge doneness — when it begins to move freely or even slides out you’re done!

Spare Ribs

Spare ribs are shown in blue in the diagram above. From that big rib portion, there are actually three cuts — the Baby Back Ribs, the Spare Ribs, and the rib tips. Baby Backs come from closer to the loin (spine) of the pig. As such, they are more tender with less fat and connective tissue. They’re also more expensive. The spare ribs come from closer to the belly of the pig. The bones are larger and they are tougher with more connective tissue. On a full rack of ribs, there is a flap of meat that comes from near the belly (the rib tips), where cartilage joins the rib bones near the sternum. Cut this flap off leaving just the rib bones, and you have a St. Louis style rib (see this YouTube video for a good demo:

Ribs have one extra optional step: removing the membrane. On the back of every slab of spare ribs is a tough membrane which, although it doesn’t affect the taste, is tough to chew. Removing it prior to smoking makes your ribs that much more tender. Here’s another YouTube video of someone taking the membrane off of a slab of baby back ribs.

You can find shoulder and ribs in most large supermarkets these days, but since you’ll rarely be cooking one rack of ribs or one shoulder at a time, you’ll probably need to look at local warehouse clubs (Sam’s BJ’s, Costco, etc.) or local meat markets, if you can find one.

Fairway Beef, Worcester, MA

Large primal cuts like these are typically shipped from the processor to the market in cryo-vac (plastic) packs, with two shoulders and three ribs per pack. When I shop, I get most of my meat from an old meat market in Worcester, MA called Fairway Beef. At a place like this you can actually talk to a butcher who knows what he or she is doing. And if you need something special, they are happy to cut it for you. Need 3 shoulders when they come 2 to a pack? No problem. They’ll open a pack and wrap one separate for you. As a backup, I sometimes shop at my local BJ’s Wholesale club. But I consider myself fortunate to have Fairway Beef so close.

If you buy spare ribs in the large packs, you will have to cut them St. Louis style yourself. The video above is a pretty good guide.

The Rub

So you have your meat … now what? Well, between 12 and 24 hours prior to hitting the heat you want to flavor it with your rub.

There is so much argument about what and how to rub the meat that a lifetime of bar-b-que experimentation could be spent just varying the your rub recipe. I’m not going to discuss all the possibilities, but give just a few recommendations.

One thing you will discover in the bar-b-que world is that many people have competitive aspirations, and competitive bar-b-quers will never divulge their rub recipe. I’m not that competitive, so I will.

Here’s my first major tip:

In the beginning, concentrate on the heat and smoking technique. Use a simple rub.

And there is no simpler rub than one you buy. Honestly – for the first few times you smoke, when you’ll be worried about monitoring the temperature of the pit and the meat and all the other factors, you don’t need to worry about whether the rub will enhance or detract from the flavor. So by all means, buy one from your favorite bar-b-que website, or even use McCormick Barbeque seasoning in the giant wholesale club size. Nearly any mix of sugar, salt, and other spices will taste good after smoking for a few hours.

But, if you really want to make your own, Alton Brown’s 8-3-1+1 ratio system works well. Use whatever measure you want: tablespoons, cups, soda cans — doesn’t matter. This is a very good starting point.

Lately, I have been using a two part system.

My Rub

First, pat the meat dry and then cover with a rub made of:

• 2 parts salt
• 1 part (combined) garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne pepper, black pepper

Wrap in plastic wrap and allow to rest in refrigerator for at least couple of hours, maybe even over night, until the rub begins to moisten and dissolve on the surface. Then apply the final rub of:

• 6 parts brown sugar
• 1 part salt

Re-wrap and allow to sit for 12 hours (shoulder) or at least 4 (ribs).

If you want to try wet rubs, you can — many people use yellow mustard as a base on shoulder. Here in New England, maple syrup or molasses is a regional flavor that works well.

The Sauce

This is another area with as many variations as there are people who bar-b-que. And once again, I recommend that beginners start with something simple before taking on the challenge of making their own sauce from scratch. In fact, because I tend towards a Memphis style where the dry rub is the major flavor component, I usually put out a bottled sauce (Sweet Baby Ray’s) and let those who really want it use it. If I use a mop sauce at all (basting while smoking) I use cider vinegar or Sweet Baby Ray’s sauce diluted 1:1 with cider vinegar.

The Pit

This is where the magic happens. And unfortunately, there is usually no cheap way to get an effective pit unless you have both an abundance of metalworking tools and talent AND access to a source of scrap metal suitable for pit construction. If you do have metal talent and materials, then there are dozens of plans on the internet for barrel smokers and other styles. If not, then you’re going to need to buy your pit. There are several styles and options.

The secret to good bar-b-que is low, indirect, heat with the right amount of smoke. A good pit enables you to reach and hold the correct (200 – 250 °F) temperature without a lot of fuss. It also helps generate smoke and expose the meat to sufficient smoke to generate flavor.

Grills

In a pinch, a grill, either charcoal or gas, can serve as a bar-b-que pit. But I’ve found that they are often more trouble than they’re worth, though some new generation gas grills are able to hold the required low temperature. (See my post on the BBQ-Source message boards about making ribs on my CharBroil RED gas grill.) But I’ve found that grills suffer from rapid temperature changes of it’s even the slightest bit breezy outside (which is why I added 4 concrete patio pavers to my grill to support the racks — increased thermal mass equals more steady temperature). And most charcoal grills don’t hold enough coals to keep the fire burning very long so you need to keep disturbing the food all the time.

If you absolutely need to use a grill, you’ll need to search the web for instructions; I’m not going to cover them here.

Electric Smoker

Image taken from http://www.masterbuilt.com/prod_smokers.html

Electric smokers, especially ones from Masterbuilt (abbreviated MES – Masterbuilt Electric Smoker on many bar-b-que message boards) are very popular. If you need to make small batches of bar-b-que for fun and for a few people, a simple smoker like this may be the ticket. Especially if you intend to actually interact with your guests during the cooking. Although not quite “set it and forget it” in the Ronco rotisserie oven sense, an electric smoker requires little tending, certainly in comparison to a wood-fired pit where the fire needs to be tended hourly or even more often.

One area where these smokers excel is in being able to hold a really low temperature (down to 100°F), just on the high end but still good enough for cold smoking other meats like bacon or salmon. If you intend to experiment with smoking other foods, this may be the pit for you.

Bullet Smoker

The bullet smoker form was made popular by the inexpensive Weber Smoky Mountain series of smokers. I’ve owned two of these myself (still have a 10 year-old one) and I can say that a Smoky Mountain was my first wood-fired bar-b-que pit. Probably the best source of information about these smokers can be found at the Virtual Weber Bullet site. Again, for small batches, these are very well proven, reliable pits with mountains of information and support on the web.

Dedicated Pit

This is where the fun starts. A dedicated smoker usually has an offset fire box of some sort (off to the side or behind the smoking surface, as opposed to a grill where the fire is below the cooking surface). There is a path created for the smoke and a series of dampers to control the size of the fire and the amount of smoke in the pit.

Dedicated pits range in price from $200 to $20,000 or more. Even the cheaper ones will gove you better bar-b-que than a grill or even a dedicated electric smoker, but when buying on the cheap end you will really need to make some modifications to make the pits really work well.

CharBroil Silver Smoker (formerly New Braunfels Black Diamond)

The first dedicated charcoal pit I bought 10 years ago, and the one I still use today, was the legendary Black Diamond smoker by New Braunfels (the NBBD – New Braunfels Black Diamond – as abbreviated on the web). I paid $199 for one at Home Depot. New Braunfels was sold a few years ago to CharBroil, but the Black Diamond lives on, essentially unchanged, as the CharBroil Silver Smoker.

The NBBD is reasonably competent out of the box, but has a noticeable temperature difference between the end near the firebox and the end near the chimney. Most owners install a baffle plate between the firebox opening and the cooking chamber (see this for just one example). In addition, the stock chimney sits near the top of the cooking chamber, allowing some very hot air to fill the chamber, making it hard to keep the temperature low. The fastest way to fix that is just to extend the tube downwards (I used a rolled up piece of aluminum flashing to do this originally), but the best way is to enhance the chimney by cutting an opening low on the bottom of the cooking chamber to enhance the smoke flow. Here’s a picture of my smoker with the new chimney attached.

Modified NBBD Smoker

All it took was a few dollars in hardware store chimney pipe and an hour with my MIG welder and I have a really good pit with even, stable temperatures. Nice.

The Wood

Just like every other aspect of bar-b-que, people argue over what kind of wood yields the best flavor. There is some regionality to wood selection with hickory the predominant wood over much of the south, while mesquite is popular in Texas, and some other woods like pecan in parts of Georgia. Fruitwoods (apple, cherry, etc.) also have their followers. Frankly, I think choice of wood makes little difference (I know that’s going to generate all kinds of controversy) with the exception of mesquite, which has such a strong and unique flavor, you can tell anything which has been smoked in it and it’s usually reserved for beef only.

First, if you are smoking with a small pit or a grill, you’ll be using charcoal as your main heat source. And therefore, you probably won’t burn enough wood to make a difference in flavor. Second, the relatively short smoking time for ribs (4 to 6 hours) probably isn’t enough time for flavor differences to come out either. Finally, if you over-smoke your meat, it tastes like bitter smoke no matter what wood you use.

Since most of us working in smaller pits are going to use charcoal as the main fuel source, the choice if wood isn’t really as important as some people would make it out to be. I typically use hardwood charcoal (usually Cowboy charcoal) as a base with hickory chunks or split maple (a local New England wood) as the smoke. I don’t soak my wood first – it seems like a waste of time to me.

The Technique

This is where the skill and experience of the pitmaster comes into play. The recipe for shoulder or ribs is pretty simple. But the art is in the execution.

For good bar-b-que, stoke your pit with charcoal and get it to about 225 °F. Add the meat and some hardwood chunks or logs to the fire.

3 Beautiful Shoulders

For shoulder, smoke it for around 1.5 hours per pound. An 8 pound shoulder will take around 12 hours. You should get yourself a remote thermometer and work to keep the pit as close to 225 °F for the duration. This is the art … to keep the temperature, you’ll need to balance the air intake and outlet and the size of the fire to keep the pit at the right temperature. Smoke the shoulder until the internal temperature reaches 190 °F. Then pull it off, wrap it in foil, and let it finish cooking for an hour. The result should look like this.

Ribs can be done a couple of ways. The safest way to start is to use a method called 3-2-1. For fall-off-the-bone tender ribs, they are placed in the smoker (at the same 225 °F) for 3 hours, then wrapped in foil with a little wet mop for 2 hours, then placed back in the smoke for the final hour. Ribs are done when the bones can be twisted and start to move around in the ribs. As you gain experience, you can vary this recipe and work on your own style, but the 3-2-1 method is nearly foolproof if you can keep the pit at the right temperature.

Conclusion

This was my bar-b-que core dump. I’m sure I will refine it over the coming weeks. I hope it helps someone just starting out and contributes something useful to the body of bar-b-que knowledge on the web.