After checking out this site for several weeks, I ordered a Smokette 009 from CS last Sunday. It arrived on Wednesday - good service - and I fired it up for the first time yesterday. I loaded 2 slabs of "St. Louis style" pork ribs, 2 oz. of wood, and set the temp at 225. The recipe book suggests 2 hours of cooking but I was really surprised and a little concerned by the results. I checked the ribs after 1 1/2 hours and they hadn't cooked much. I ended up cooking them about 4 1/2 hours with the temp moved up to 250 for the last hour. They were still not as done as you would like and I finished them inside in the oven for an hour at 250. During the time they were in the CS I opened the door probably 4 times and I know this lengthens the cooking time, but how else do you know when they are done? Also the CS was in the sun and outside temp was in the mid 80's. Obviously my main concern is that the ribs simply took much longer to cook than I expected. They actually ended up tasting pretty good But quite a bit of fat stayed in the ribs perhaps because of low cooking temp. One bright spot - the CS sauce is really good. After spending $400+ for the CS, I am worried about whether I will be able to produce a quality product for family and guests. I would appreciate any comments, feedback, and advice from experienced users. I am getting ready to go fishing for a few hours so I won't be able to respond to any posts till later this evening. Thanks for reading.
Original Post
