Greetings, I've recently entered the Wonderful World of BBQ and have been
lurking here for a couple of weeks. Being a relative newbie, I won't have
much advice to pass along and since I know how to use my search tools, I can
generally find answers to my questions without asking them again.
I tend to post replies to subjects in an attempt to be humorous (and
sometimes fail miserably), and being a newbie I don't have much to say that
can be useful information. :-)

My first pit aquisition is a Char-Broil Silver Smoker.
I decided on purchasing a low end smoker in case I didn't like doing my own
'Q or wasn't any good at it. (short smoker review: Not a bad, inexpensive
unit, but the cart is spindly and there's a few air leaks that could use
"fixin'")

Turns out doing my research before attempting any BBQ was a good idea.

I started with some chickens and determined that the "beer can" chicken
stand wasn't a good substitute for just setting the chickens on the grate
due to the temperature differential between the grate and the hood. Not to
mention they don't fit as well under the hood.

Next up was some ribs and shoulder. I borrowed a rub from a friend that
worked in a BBQ joint down in NorCal (I learned the art of doing ribs last
year with him as a teacher) and went to town. For a first attempt, things
came out pretty well, but took entirely too long. I had a bit of trouble
keeping the heat high enough and my average temp was too low.

The next time around, I did two racks of ribs and two 4.5lb shoulders and
everything came out perfect. I landed Chef Juke's Raspberry-Chipotle BBQ
sauce recipe from this newsgroup and added my own twist(homemade marionberry
jam instead of raspberry preserves). I passed most of the meat around to
friends and co-workers and got quite a few kudos, so I must have done
something right!

Hmm... What's next?




--Brett