Steps by Step Guide

To Get Started

Select a smoker – Start with a smoker that is easy to use and will give you a great tasting meal.  Our recommendations  for best smokers for beginners are the Weber Smokey Mountain WSM, the Traeger pellet feed,  or a Pit Boss Silver Star 3 electric smoker.  We recommend these as best smokers because they are priced right and fairly simple to use.  The first two burn wood directly which is great for taste, the third option is electric making it super easy to maintain temperature.  For more details on these and higher end options simply click the Smokers link here.

Select a Meat – Obviously what you are going to smoke will drive the process a bit.  For best meats for beginner smokers we like to suggest pork shoulder or ribs.  They are both great tasting off the smoker but fairly forgiving.  More information on meats and fish as well can be found on our Meats page.

Select a Wood – At BBQ4Beginners we believe that wood is the best fuel for taste.  The type of wood used will impart specific flavors to what you are cooking.  If you are using a direct burn smoker, we recommend using a mix of charcoal and wood as you begin to smoke.  While wood adds great bbq flavor, the charcoal will burn more consistently and require less management.  You can start with a base, about 70% of the fuel, of charcoal, and add wood chunks or wood chips on top.  You will get the wood smoke but it will find it easier to maintain temperature.  Traeger smokers use their own pellets which are fed in to the unit to maintain temperature with little management.  If you choose an electric option then you can select from a range of wood chips to add flavor to the process.  But, just like the direct burn the type of wood will have an impact on how great your food will taste.  We discuss fuels and flavors more on the Smokers page related to each choice.

A few additional items you will need – Having a good thermometer is essential.  Knowing your meat is cooked to the correct temperature will make the final product better and make sure those who eat it won’t get sick.  We also recommend that you get a pair of grill gloves that will let you handle smoker and the meat.  We cover these items if more detail in Items section.

The Day Before

Prepare the Meat – If you are doing Ribs there is a membrane that should be removed.  While the fat and connective tissue will break down in the smoking process the membrane will not.  At one end of the rack, slide a dinner knife under the membrane and over a bone.  Lift and loosen the membrane until it tears.  Grab the edge of the membrane with a paper towel and pull it off.  The membrane may come off in one whole piece, or you may need to remove it in smaller pieces.  For pork shoulder or the butt portion of shoulder these are often sold with the skin still on.  We like to leave this on and it is very easy to remove when the smoking process is completed.  I good approach however is to make cross cuts through the skin and fat layer, creating a diamond pattern to allow more of the rub to reach the meat.

Rub the Meat – The rub is really important for getting the best flavor.  You can go to our Rubs page for some thougts on our choices for best rubs.  These include both recipes for rubs to create yourself and some suggestions on tried and true rubs you can buy.  Make sure you completely cover the meat, don’t worry about adding too much.  When the meat is coated place it in a large sealable bag or wrap it really well in plastic.  One important tip if you are making your own rub.  Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl and then apply the mix to the meat.  This will ensure even coverage with the full flavor profile.

At BBQ4Beginners we don’t like to use sauce in the cooking process and wait to add it to the end product.  We know some folks will tell you to sauce your ribs or other meat during the process but we think the taste of the meat should stand all by itself.  We believe some places rely a bit to much on their sauce to get taste but we’ll talk more about that on our Sauces page.  Some professionals will add thin sauces or ‘mops’ to their meats to help keep them moist.  This is usually however because they are cooking at higher temperatures then we are discussing here and the meat can get a bit dry.

Let’s Get Smokin – Now you are ready to smoke.  Please make sure you plan you timing out to make sure that you have time to manage the whole process.  For Ribs you will need 6 to 7 hours and for the Pork Shoulder you will need around 12.  Yes this is the slow part of ‘Low and Slow’.

Start your smoker, get the coals and wood burning well.  If you rush this you may struggle to keep temperature.  The coals should have evident white edges through out the fire area and the wood should be burning.  If you are using a Traeger or electric this is a little easier but just as important.

For Ribs, we recommend at 3 – 2 – 1 process which you will find is pretty common.  This would be 3 hours of initial cooking with wood burning or wood chips in the smoke box.

The 1st phase is important to establishing the bark and smokey flavor.  Please make sure that the smoker is maintaining an internal temperature of 225 to 240 degrees to ensure that the meat is cooking properly.

The 2nd phase is to take the ribs and wrap them completely in foil.  We like to add a little bit of sweet juice at this point inside the foil wrapping.  This stage is important to improving the tenderness and temperature level of the meat.  The internal temperature can stall or seem to be stuck for a while during the process and this will help.  This stage is for 2 hours.  When this is finishing you can take internal temperature readings on the meat which should be near the desire levels.  It is important that the meat reaches 195 to 205 degrees to be properly cooked and provide a great final product.  Take a look at some thermometer options on our tools page.

The 3rd stage is a finishing stage.  When the ribs come out of the foil they may be very soft almost falling apart.  The last phase is an hour.  This will give the meat a great finish and final flavor.  If you are burning wood then you can add some more at this point, if you are using a smoker with a wood chip box this is a great time to add some more.

When the time is up don’t forget to test the temperature again to ensure they are done.  At this point you’ll want to put them in a pan or tray and cover it with foil, letting the meat rest.  It will cool a little bit and let the juices run a bit now that it is removed from the heat.

Enjoy your hard work!

Pork Shoulder

For pork shoulder, also known as Boston Butt, everything is really the same you will just need to double the times for everything.  That means it is roughly a 12 hour process 6 – 4 – 2.  Managing and measuring temperature are really important.  If you are using a smoker with charcoal and wood you need to make sure that you start with a good amount so that you don’t drop temperature as it runs low.  We recommend when you are tending to the meat to wrap it this is a good time to add more wood and charcoal.

For larger pieces of meat such as the pork shoulder the meat can hit a point where the internal temperature ‘stalls’ or doesn’t seem to increase for quite a period of time.  This is natural and occurs when the moisture is pushed from the meat and it sweats, effectively cooling the meat.  While some folks will say that wrapping the pork shoulder in foil takes away from the bark but we don’t believe that this is the case.  After 6 hours the bark is well established, and while yes the wrapping process does soften this a bit, when you put the meat back on for the final phase, adding more wood, the outside comes out with an excellent taste and texture.  We also recommend adding some sweet juice in to the foil wrap.  While the rub has some heat and salt this also helps add some sweetness to the meat.

With a bigger piece of meat measuring internal temperature is really important.  With ribs if you leave them for the time described above and your smoker is the right temperature it is fairly easy to get the meat cooked well.  The pork shoulder is a bigger piece and will take more time.  

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