Ribs in Progress

Call me immature, but I am smoking ribs even though they won’t be done until 10:30.

I ordered myself a Smokin-It #2 electric smoker, and it arrived today. It comes with instructions saying to run a load of wood through it without meat before trying to cook. I tried to obey, but after a couple of hours, I went to the smoker, and I saw that it had tripped a poolside GIF breaker. I had to move it to a real breaker. That put me hours behind schedule. I was going to forget about it until tomorrow, but it nagged at me.

I’m pleased with the smoker. It’s light enough to put in a vehicle. It doesn’t take up much room. The manufacturer says it will do 31 pounds of meat. Not sure why they think it’s 31 and not 30. Anyway, even if it only does 20 pounds, it’s ample for my use. If I had friends over for ribs, I would expect to be under 15 pounds every time.

I don’t expect to get heavily into cooking again, but a smoker is a good thing for any man to have.

I now have a rack of spare ribs going. I put my signature rub on it. By “signature,” I mean the rub I made up a few years ago in a couple of minutes. Is it the best? I have no way of knowing. Probably not. But it’s excellent, and it’s a known factor.

There was a mistake in the recipe. It said it was enough for two racks, but I wasn’t able to cover one with it. I made two batches.

All I did was cut the rack in half so it would fit and bury it in the rub. I don’t remove the membrane from my ribs. I think that would be like cutting the crust off a peanut butter sandwich to make a precious little snowflake happy. I like every edible part of the rib.

The smoker looks very nice. It should last forever. It’s a double-walled stainless box with insulation between the walls. It has casters, so I don’t have to slide it around.

The temperature control is way off. I set it at 250°, and it went to 341°. That’s a plus as far as I’m concerned. It means I can go higher than expected. I can always turn it down for proper barbecue temperatures. I’m using an additional remote thermometer anyway. I never planned to rely on a knob.

I emailed the Smokin-It company to see if they knew why it tripped my breaker. Hope they have useful input.

My old smoker, the Hoginator, was wonderful, but it was not handy. It had electric heat in the meat area, but I had to burn wood in a separate box for smoke. It used a great deal of electricity. Each heating element was like an electric hair dryer. The new smoker is very simple to run. I’m hoping for the best.

I haven’t seen any black smoke. The smoke is light-colored, and that’s a good sign.

This looks like a nice trouble-free way to get excellent barbecue. I won’t know until later tonight.