Hi everyone just wanted to introduce myself to the forum and give a little bit of info on my first Cookshack project. I live in Newfoundland, Canada which is basically an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean for those of you not familiar with it.
I've been looking around for a smoker for a while now hoping to pick up something high quality and gently used. To be honest I never heard of the Cookshack brand until I saw a used SM008 pop up on our local Kijiji for sale ads two days ago. Right away I started doing some research and found all the glowing reviews about Cookshack and the high quality of the products. This one was selling for $300 so I went to check it out and it was in great condition even though it was 10 years old. It has never seen the outside and was very well maintained. Since new models are $700US plus shipping and tax I jumped on this one for $300, which equates to about $225US.
Now that I had to smoker I had to figure out my first project and there was only one answer that came to me.... RIBS. I've cooked a lot of ribs and normally use the 2.5-3 hour at 300 foil wrap in oven method and sauce them for the final hour unwrapped. They always turn out good but I was hoping for something even better. After a lot of google work I decided to try the 3-2-1 method but shorten it a bit since I am using baby back ribs.
I applied rub the night before, using a basic brown sugar, salt, pepper, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika blend. I'm not sure if the night before helps at all but I figure it can't really hurt as long as I don't use too much salt and turn the ribs hammy. I used a small chunk of apple wood in the smoke box, set the smoker at 225 and set the ribs in for 2.5 hours initially. My plan was 2 hours but it took about 30 minutes or so for the smoker to get up to temp so I left them for an extra half hour. I had a digital thermometer inside the smoker and saw an interesting temp swing happening. The temp would reach 225, then drop to just over 200 in 20 minutes or so then back up to 225 after another 20 minutes. So there is about a 40 minute cycle of reaching the set temp, 25 degree drop then back to set temp again.
The ribs looked great after 2.5 hours, then I did a double foil wrap and back in again for 2 more hours. After the foil stage they were looking great and still not so tender they were falling apart, I could easily lift them with my tongs but they had good bend. For the final stage I sauced them up and put them back in for 45 minutes. In retrospect I should have applied more sauce and put sauce on the bottom side but I never.
So the end result.... they were really good ribs but maybe I should have dropped them 
onto the grill for 10 minutes just to get some char, I was missing that a bit. I was also thinking maybe I should have left them in the smoke a little longer or added more wood, I was wanting a bit more smoke flavor. Again they were very good ribs but like most rib cooks I always think they can be a bit better.
That's my first smoker story, I already after getting a lot of great tips here such as not cleaning the interior but using foil for the bottom and smoke box. Here's a few pictures of my first smoke project!
