Okay here we go ... the first cook on the new ProQ smoker. I figured I'd do a chicken as I'm pretty comfortable smoking it and thought it's a good baseline for the new smoker.
I used my custom rub on the chicken and for smoking wood, I used cherry. It has a very dark, rich smell to it, which translates well to the food. The instructions say to fill the water pan, I filled it up to half way with semi-warm water.
At 2:15pm, the fire went on. I filled the basket with a layer of heat beads and added two chunks of wood, like the instructions said. At 2:40pm, the chicken went on. At this point, the ProQ's top stacker rangehood was reading at 110F. Ummm not as high as I'd like and errr there's lots of smoke coming out edges of the stackers ?!?
At 3:40pm, I checked out the smoker and the rangehood was sitting at 150F. Hmm, an hour later and it hasn't risen that much. The Internal temperature of the chicken was at 36C, so it was cooking, but the rangehood just wasn't going any higher.
At 4:40pm, the internal temperature was 46C. I can usually cook a chicken in two hours on the Smokey Joe, so at this point, I decided to take the water pan out and put an alfoil pan in there to catch the fat drippings. I also chucked another chunk of cherry wood on the fire. The heat started to go up.
An hour later at 5:40pm, the rangehood was at 190F and the internal temperature was 53C. Not good. So, I fired up another chimney of heat beads and 20 minutes later, I added those. At 7pm, the internal temperature finally hit 77C internal; cooked, but well past time to eat. My wife made some sandwiches, which we had at 6pm. So, I guess we'll have the chicken tomorrow.
Certainly some learning to be done. As this was my first cook on the ProQ, I guess it's going to take me a bit of time to learn it's intricacy. With this cook, I used 3 chunks of wood as it said to use 2 initially and 1 later. I think that's too much as I could taste a bitterness that the smoke had imparted onto the chicken skin.
I used my custom rub on the chicken and for smoking wood, I used cherry. It has a very dark, rich smell to it, which translates well to the food. The instructions say to fill the water pan, I filled it up to half way with semi-warm water.
At 2:15pm, the fire went on. I filled the basket with a layer of heat beads and added two chunks of wood, like the instructions said. At 2:40pm, the chicken went on. At this point, the ProQ's top stacker rangehood was reading at 110F. Ummm not as high as I'd like and errr there's lots of smoke coming out edges of the stackers ?!?
At 3:40pm, I checked out the smoker and the rangehood was sitting at 150F. Hmm, an hour later and it hasn't risen that much. The Internal temperature of the chicken was at 36C, so it was cooking, but the rangehood just wasn't going any higher.
At 4:40pm, the internal temperature was 46C. I can usually cook a chicken in two hours on the Smokey Joe, so at this point, I decided to take the water pan out and put an alfoil pan in there to catch the fat drippings. I also chucked another chunk of cherry wood on the fire. The heat started to go up.
An hour later at 5:40pm, the rangehood was at 190F and the internal temperature was 53C. Not good. So, I fired up another chimney of heat beads and 20 minutes later, I added those. At 7pm, the internal temperature finally hit 77C internal; cooked, but well past time to eat. My wife made some sandwiches, which we had at 6pm. So, I guess we'll have the chicken tomorrow.
Certainly some learning to be done. As this was my first cook on the ProQ, I guess it's going to take me a bit of time to learn it's intricacy. With this cook, I used 3 chunks of wood as it said to use 2 initially and 1 later. I think that's too much as I could taste a bitterness that the smoke had imparted onto the chicken skin.