A real Newbie! Need advice.

Welcom Buck,
you are really lucky to live there in Truro.It is a beautiful place. KathyE

Hi Kathy, thanks for the welcome! From where do you hail? I'm surprised you heard of this small place unless, of course, you live nearby.

Jeez, open your eyes boy! I can see you're from Oklahoma City. I guess you have done a bit of tavelling!

hahaha, good one Buck.

Welcome to the group.

Make sure you read through the Pro forum, there several hundred posts, but MORE experience than you can buy in a book.

I'm sure some will jump in and offer assistance.

Again Welcome.

Smokin Okie (from Oklahoma)

Buck,
You have to learn to taste just a bit, invite lots of friends to sample your q. Otherwise you will weigh 300 lbs! We've got a regular at the farmers' market that gives us her opinion on our brisket every week. She's great and honest. I wish she'd attend competitions with us.
I'm just here to boost your confidence.
My other half, Jack, can tell you more about how he does ribs.
Welcome to the forum.
Peggy

I plan on keeping it as simple as possible, meaning that I don't want to get in over my head by offering a wide range of smoked products. Initially, at least, I'll be focusing on ribs (beef and pork) and chicken. Once I have a system downpat for those items, I will add perhaps brisket. Alternative items could be tested once in a while as a special and, if a big hit, consideration would be given to adding "the hit" as a staple menu item. By and large, though, I would rather do a few things exceptionally well than many items whereby the quality suffers. I will be reviewing as many forum posts as possible to gain insight on the production of awesome ribs and chicken. Any and all advice is greatly appreciated. It will be fun to update the forum on my progress regarding this adventure!!!

Buck,
I grew up around Philadelphia PA and every Summer, my Father took us camping for our vacation.No trailers or sampers..a tent and the luxury of air mattresses and a coleman stove. He also loved to paint so we went to Nova Scotia a couple times along with other places in Canada over the years.Plus out in Western US a lot.
I have a painting Dad made from a photo he took in Truro.

buck,
first off welcome!!!!!!! this is a really good forum and you just would not believe the helpful people here!!!!!
your thinking of introducing items slowly i think is spot on and should serve you well.
on the rib question i will give two methods of doing it that i know work ok.
1st method is the one we use where i work part time. smokers are all southern pride units but the technique will also work for any smokers.
1- cook the ribs
2- put in bins and then into a walk in reefer
3- next day load the line smoker (this is the small pride unit and reheat at 225f for about 90 mins and cut heat back to 175f. this will carry thru lunch
drawbacks to this method are you can really dry out the ribs if they aren't foiled while reheating.

ok now here is how i do them for our operation and it doesn't matter which cookshack model you use. i do it this way in both my fec and peggy's sm150 and it works both ways.
1- smoke for 1 hour at 145-165f
2- increase temp to 275 and go for around 3 hours for 1 and a half down baby backs or 4 hours for 2 and a half down spare ribs. check for the bend factor until you like how they are done.
3- tear off a piece of heavy gauge aluminum foil and overlay commercial film on top of that
4- lay your rib on this and sauce or whatever it is you like doing and wrap in the film sealing tight and then the foil and put into reefer
5- reheat sealed at 250 for one hour
6- please don't laugh but this is how we finish them. peggy cooks chicken in the fec at max heat which is around 425f+. while i am getting this temp the ribs are out of the smoker, still wrapped and just waiting for the 30 mins the chicken takes. when the chicken comes out i kill the heat on the fec, unwrap the ribs, add alittle sauce and throw them into to set the sauce. takes about 10 mins tops.
and that is how i do it at work and how i do it on my cookshacks
hope it helps some
sorry the answer was so long but ribs costs a bunch and sure wouldnt want a short answer leaving out steps to cost you money
jack

Hi Jack, thanks for the detailed advice! I guess the important thing is to wrap the ribs properly so they maintain their "fresh out of the smoker" qualities after rehetaing to serving temperature.

Just out of interest, if you just finished a smoking cycle of juicy ribs and it's really busy, is there a method you use to keep the ribs at a certain holding temp (in another device, say a Alto-sham slow-cooker) whereby you reload the smoker and do another cycle? Business may be so damn good that I need a good supply waiting at serving temperature, rather than being thrown in the cooler. I'm being optimistic here!!! Also, if I happen to say something stupid, it's because I am not even at the rookie stage (ha! ha!).

buck,
there sure is.
just use the auto holding feature on the sm model. if you will be going into and out of it a bunch (we use our's in lieu of a steam table) just manually set your hold temp to around 165f which we have found keeps the product consistantly over 141f.
thats one advantage of having both an fec and a sm for us.
jack

Buck,
A lot of the guys at competitions heat ice chests with boiling water, drain and place their ribs in there wrapped with foil and newspaper. Then they finish them just before turn-in. I wouldn't recommend that method for keeping a health inspector happy, but that is the idea, I think. Seal in the moisture, then finish off the outside.
I agree with you on keeping your menu simple. It's much better to do a few spectacular items than a bunch of mediocre or really bad. When we try something new, we put it on as a special, then wait for feedback. Our customers aren't shy about asking what happened to the beef ribs or meatloaf sandwich.
Best of luck!
Peggy