Here we go with the second cook on the ProQ. I used what was leftover from my custom rub from last week. My wife made a comment that my previous rubs had been too peppery -- first I'd heard about it, so that's why I thought putting half the amount of normal rub on there, would satisfy.

I setup the coal basket with a layer of heat heads and I thought I'd try out the minion method. Once again, I used cherry wood for smoke. Going to have to go back to Aussie BBQs and get some more I think.

At 9:20am, the meat went on, after spending last night in the fridge with the rub on it. Unfortunately, my wireless thermometer was playing up and wouldn't get any readings. After resetting the devices and the batteries, it came good. Phew !

Whilst the heat beads in the chimney were heating up, I boiled a big pan of water and added it to the water pan in the smoker. I setup a small alfoil drip catching tray with water and fresh rosemary under the roast. The internal temperature of the meat was at 7C at the start.

40 minutes later and it was at 12C with the ProQ rangehood saying 150F. At 11:30am, the internal temperature was up 40C and the rangehood had cracking the 190F mark and was sitting just above 200F. It was smelling really great and I was very happy with the temperatures as if it keeps going up, it should be cooked in 4 hours at this rate.

At 12:30pm, the internal temperature was 53C. At 1:30pm, it was 59C with the rangehood now sitting back down on 190F. I stoked the fire with some tongs and the rangehood went back up to 200F. Not overly happy with the way this gauge is working so far.

I then refilled the water pan with more boiling water and added all the coals I had -- need to do some shopping. I think I've used 2-3kgs of coals on this cook alone so far and the temperature of the pork was only rising slowly.

At 3:20pm, the 6 hour mark, the internal temperature was 69C with the rangehood showing 180F. 20 minutes later, I took the water pan out and the rangehood went straight up to 250F. The internal was then at 71C.

At 4pm, the rangehood hit 300F without the water pan. Half an hour later and it was at 275F and the meat had hit the perfect internal temperature of 77C. I then foiled the leg and added the jus (small foil tray).

At 5:20pm, the 8 hour mark, it was time to rest the meat and start cleaning up the smoker for next use. The pork didn't pull, but it was delicious. It was tasty and tender. My wife reckoned it was the best cook I've ever done -- I think the lack of pepper was a deciding factor here. Her parents also thought it was "one of the best" I've done too. Just wish I could work out what's going on with the top rangehood and getting it up to temp.

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.