[Music]
good morning ladies and gentlemen
today um what I'm going to do is just
light my uh uh Offset Smoker get it
going and prepare it to make some ribs
however ever I wanted to spend a little
extra time today on what it takes just
to set up this Grill and get it get the
fire going and to manage the temperature
that you want to have um what I do every
time is I I thoroughly clean this Grill
every time and make sure it's it's good
and I even wash the mats and everything
else so what I normally do is I start
with bringing out my uh Maverick ET
372 and uh getting that set up and ready
to go I put down either what they call a
frog mat or a q mat lay that down to
place my food product on it I make sure
that my um element to uh or probe is out
there where it can collect the
temperature of the grill I also make
sure I have a pan of water in here
because the fire does get hot next to
the uh uh the the fire box which is
right over here and it will send then
maybe a little bit moisture into the air
as the fire is being made so wanted to
make major important things that I have
is is make sure your your Firebox in an
offset or the area that you're going to
burn your your uh smoke fire uh is clean
I do this every time at the conclusion
is what I do is uh I get this thing so
that it is completely clean and that way
I can U uh make sure that the air flow
is Good from underneath so clean it out
every time it's really worthwhile now
the next thing is charcoal I normally
use Royal Oak charcoal because it's a
lump charcoal it's a hardwood lump
charcoal made out of Oak and I use this
primarily um as the base of the uh uh of
the fire starting okay so a lot of
people just use lump charcoal all the
time secondly I use brick charcoal you
don't have to you can use all lump or if
you choose you can use briquette
charcoal as your pleasure now I happen
to buy this outdoor gmet charcoal on
sale at Academy Sports and this charcoal
was like $3 a bag it was really
inexpensive and it does a nice job I've
used it about four times already um I
also picked up uh yesterday this uh
little box uh from Weber it has these
little cubes in it that you can use to
start your fire either with match or
some other source what I do and I I
think it's a real good investment if
you're going to be a wood smoker is to
buy yourself a torch and use a torch to
light it up now this is the benzomatic
uh ts8000 it has an automatic start an
automatic shut off for me that I can use
which is fingertip operated and I find
this indispensable in starting the fires
so today I'm going to load up the
briquettes and the lump that I'm going
to start a fire and that's the whole
purpose of this particular video okay
see you in a
minute okay I'm going to be right around
in a second I just don't walk real good
anymore I'm getting
there okay so the first thing I'm going
to do is I'm going to put a nice layer
of lump charcoal
[Music]
in
[Music]
okay just enough with this
bag the next thing I'm going to do is
put in some of the uh briquettes because
the brickette will give you a longer
running
fire that
way we will uh uh get a better burn and
get we stay hotter for a longer time in
the meantime I'm going to try to
install these um
little
uh little white
cubes kind to put a few of them
around as you can see there's just
little white cubes just place them in
here at random and you know you got
yourself something good going here maybe
you'll accelerate the
fire and uh do
that and now I'm going to place some of
these PS
in here as
well all right so I've got
theet I've got this I've got lump now
you can start this fire with newspapers
if you want there's no problem with that
you don't need anything else more
sophisticated but um it seems to me that
this is a little quicker and gets it
started better and I think that uh you
get a nice hot even fire this
way
[Applause]
oh
okay this will go so what we're going to
do is we're I'm just going to leave the
lid open I'm going to leave the door
open and for about 20 or so minutes
usually to get these all white where
they're going and getting nice and warm
and then I'm going to start trying to
get the smallest pieces of wood I can on
top of these briquettes I'm going to
flatten them down and spread them out a
little bit and they will do that all by
themselves but in this instance this is
really what it takes to get this thing
going and I give it a full Air Supply at
this point okay I'm going to break for
now okay it's 30 minutes since I've been
here and the coals on the bottom are
really taking off really well I've got
Flames still coming off of the fire it's
that hot and this is when I usually take
very small pieces of wood and I just
kind of toss them over here and when
after a while they will heat up and when
the wood heats up and gets it all of a
sudden it will snap into flame and this
way it goes I still kind of leave the
door open but I can tell you right now
the um uh even the fire pit with the
door wide open over here my Maverick
says that the at the far end of the pit
it's
127° I don't know if you can get a
handle on that from here but uh uh there
it is and it's time to close the door to
the
pit okay and uh you can tell from
here okay uh this needle is starting to
move uh it also is showing about 125° up
here from the heat level going near the
chimney I was a foolish boy I forgot to
open up my vent over here but now it's
open and you got to remember that too so
don't forget based on my little error
you need to do that but I I usually
recognize it before it's too late and uh
so I got this going the holes are
turning white on the bottom they're
moving up slowly like a minion method if
you will but in another 15 minutes this
whole thing will be a blaze and I'm just
going to leave it like this I'm going to
just leave the door open a slight Edge
like this and I'm going to close the top
lid now and I'm just going to let it
ferment if you will bad word but that's
what it's going to go on and the heat
will continue to rise inside the machine
so again we have the door slightly a jar
the heat will build up and the coals
will eventually all take over and then I
will start putting on the wood that I
have located down here okay okay see you
later my uh those two little logs got
hotten up that I took one of the big
ones and shoved it on and now I'm hoping
that this will burn down and create a
nice hot steady bed of coals in order to
feed the fire and I see the fire is
already at 142 this is going to go for
another 15 minutes probably soon as it
hits 200° I'm going to shut the dampers
on the side over here let me see if I
get around I'm not I'm not doing too
good on the feet
so um here we are so what what I will do
is Kick this just like that when it hits
200 215 something if I come out here and
look and whatever it is over 200 I'm
going to I'm going to do that I will
have this
closed and uh right now as you can see
um these this these pieces of wood as I
explained uh before are very very dry I
pick them up for $9.95 a bag for 1 and
1/2 cubic feet and um it's smoking
really good now so I'm going to close
the lid and uh let this thing go okay
we'll catch you in a while okay just
wanted to interject one thing I'm not
really going to go over a whole lot
about these ribs but this is the reason
why we're firing up the smoker today and
I have these now uh being prepared so um
they're ready to go on as soon as the
temperature hits about 220 225 and I'm
going to try to keep it at 225 all day
long until they're done okay you can see
it there's a nice light smoke coming out
of the uh chimney here uh the
temperature is
now just moved across 200
I've got the door slightly a
jar almost fell over that would have
been a good scene
crash um and it's time to put the ribs
on which I will do right now okay the
ribs are on I'm going to bring the
temperature back to 200
225 and then we're on the way to uh
hopefully a nice dinner all right we're
got this uh fire going good ribs are on
going to close this down
going to shut this going to shut off
this door which is pretty hot and I
should have put a glove on going to move
this
halfway that should do
it and uh we're in business nice smoke
okay okay it's 10 minutes later um as
you can see I'm approaching
225 and this is exactly where I want to
be and I want to be this way for the
next 5 and 1/2 hours and
that's the way it's cooking I got the
smoke where I want
it and uh it's doing very nicely so
unlike a pellet smoker or um one of the
other smokers this requires a lot more
attention than a pellet smoker obviously
and uh cuz you're constantly monit
monitoring air flow and I always check
and look out to see what color the smoke
is the smoke uh color will give you a
good indication whether whether or not
you're at the temperature you want to be
at okay we'll catch you later okay
there's a break in the Florida Miami
game and so I decided to come out and
take a look I got nice steady stream of
smoke as you can see the temperature
looks like it's around 225 it's doing
exactly what I want it to do and uh just
want to show you something though at the
the um the Maverick says
199 this ISS 225 so they're never never
equal but what what happens is is I
interpolate so if there's a 25°
difference and I'm sitting in my house
between the Maverick and the uh
thermometer on the on the uh smoker I
always look at the Maverick in the house
and and then I just add 25 or 30° to it
and then I can figure out where the
smoker really is so if I see the
Maverick go up any further I know that
I've got to shut the uh wind down to the
uh the air flow down to the to the fire
so that I can lower the temp temperature
all right catch you
later okay I just opened this thing up
got a piece of wood on it and uh it
looks like it's moving along I got a
temperature started going up almost to
250 and um that's a little higher than I
want but I'm going to be changing it
pretty soon so that's it and uh have a
nice light smoke coming out okay it's uh
5 hours ago uh temperature is at 2:25 it
stayed there for the entire cook um I'm
going to let it stay on for another half
an
hour um in terms of processing the the
airflow I've opened up the dampers all
the way I haven't added any more
uh uh fuel for over an hour because I
want the fire to die down and what it's
running on is pure coals at this point
in time very little smoke is being
generated because all I have left is
just just plain
smoke um and as I said before the uh um
temperature is at 225 and I I expect to
take this off in about a half an hour
okay we'll talk to you later okay um as
you can see I have removed the
ribs I have this is all that's left the
way I do this is I time it so it will go
down and burn itself into Ash um by the
end of the cook if it was a 10-hour cook
I would have kept going until the last 2
hours but what I've maintained is a
steady
225° temperature and this is the last of
all the wood so I used maybe um six
small pieces of wood through the entire
uh uh cooking process and I have not
used any additional charcoal whatsoever
so the first charcoal that I applied was
it as you can see it's almost all burned
down and what I'm going to do is I'm
going to let this now go out so that
tomorrow morning uh I am going to clean
this whole thing out and toss the ashes
in a safe can okay uh that's the end of
this cook I may come back with an epilog
just to show you the ribs but uh that's
the whole purpose of this was managing
the fire and starting the fire and
getting it all through a uh the process
okay
[Music]