Cooking Again

Doing a smoke for a family friend and more practice today, 2 briskets, 2 shoulders, 8 slabs, 18 thighs. I will post my boxes later today.

No pictures yet, getting ready to cook a Brisket and 3 slabs of ribs tonight.

matt
Phat Jacks BBQ

Sticks,

How are you planning to layout the food in your pit? This is how I utilize my space for a comp:

Butts on the bottom rack, middle right pushed back a little.
Briskets on the bottom rack, far right.
Ribs on the top rack, left side.
Chicken on the bottom rack, far left side.

Reasons: The bottom middle of the pits cook hotter (Hot spots) and butts are most forgiving so that's where they go. I push them back just a bit so that they don't get too hot. Although, you can always rotate the meats, but I don't so this is how I place them. Set it and forget it.

Briskets are most delicate, so they get one of the cooler spots.

Ribs get put to the top, unless you want raw chicken droppings on your almost done ribs.

You don't have to follow this, but I have had the most success with this.

So far I have put done the following-

Bottom Right hand side (Larger Side) - Brisket - Rotate at 3 hours then at 5-6 hours I wrap it and let em cook

Bottom Left hand side - Pork

Top Left - Chicken thighs although I am going to try some out in my WSM and compare labor day

Top Right- Ribs

Here are my practice boxes from Thursday nights cook, need to work on some stuff as I can now see in the pics but progress was made and the cook went great.

https://i.servimg.com/u/f52/12/82/61/93/briske10.jpg

https://i.servimg.com/u/f52/12/82/61/93/chicke10.jpg

https://i.servimg.com/u/f52/12/82/61/93/pork10.jpg

https://i.servimg.com/u/f52/12/82/61/93/ribs10.jpg

Here are some tips, take it however you want, but that's all I have to offer are some tips.

Brisket - It looks good, but it appears that you trimmed the left side AFTER you cooked it. Try trimming it to fit in your box before you cook it. That way you will have a nice ring all the way around. Also helps to keep hanging pieces from appearing.

Chicken - Your chicken looks nice, but you should try trimming it, so that all the pieces are even and the skin wraps around it.

Ribs - It looks like you have a couple of ribs that are cut pretty close to the bone. This is probably due to curvature of the bone. Try cutting "Hollywood Style". This eliminates a judge trying to take a bite from the bone side and getting pissed that there wasn't much meat.

Pork - It's looking a littl dry. What temp did you take it to? Carry a spray bottle of apple juice with you. When your presentation is ready, give it a spritz of the AJ to give it a wet/moist look. You do at least provide chunks. Anything to stringy or mushy is bad.

PM me and I'll send you some pics.

Feed back is always welcome. I will try your tips when I cook this sunday. I learned a new way to do boxes so they will much better as well. I didn't think about trimming before I cookit so that it fits nicely...good idea.

Thanks again for your help.