Yes, I am a smoker

Ever since I was roommates with Ed back in Santa Clara, I have garnered an interest to smoking food. He bought a New Braunfels smoker that had the hot box offset on the side. We have had many a good party with that smoker as the base of the food gorging. I have considered picking up a smoker for myself, but never really got the itch. Until I visited my in-laws in Sierra Vista. They put together a DIY smoker made from clay pots and a hot plate (hehe, I said hot plate) as the heat element. They cooked up some pork shoulder and it was at that point I had to start doing things myself and get some of that goodness in my own house.

I was pointed to some smokers from Traeger that look downright awesome. The downside is that they are a bit pricey. The one I would consider getting was a whopping $900. A bit steep. So I kind of tabled the search until I found the Bradley line of smokers. It's a rather simple setup of a side unit that feeds smoking biscuits onto a small burner and a 500W heating element within a refridgerator like container in which you put the items of food you are smoking. It's kind of like cheating with the automatic feed and the adjustable heating element - but I have had seen and participated in enough of the tending to the hotbox and adding charcoal and wood chips to know that I'm not patient enough to do it manually.

I went ahead and ordered one. $250 through Amazon - you can't beat that. It actually came next day! Of course, I was a bit excited so I put it together, went to Costco and picked up a few racks of baby back ribs. Setup was a breeze, and all I had to do was do a 1 hour pre-season and I was good to go.

After putting together a simple rub made of brown sugar, paprika, salt, black pepper, onion/garlic powder and some cayenne pepper, I coated the ribs and put them into the smoker. I fed a mix of Alder and Hickory biscuits into the smoke generator and sat back and waited. Of course, I frequently checked the temperature and smoke to make sure everything was working as expected first :) After 5 and a half hours, I couldn't take it anymore and we were ready to eat!

How's that for some tasty goodness. The ribs came out very good, especially for the first batch out of the smoker. Over time, things will only improve as the smoker seasons with each use. They weren't 'fall off the bone' tender, but they were very close. There is still a bunch I have to learn about the art of smoking, and now that I have one of my own to mess around with I plan on perfecting the craft and filling up my gut along the way!