Water Smoker

I would be remiss in not writing an entry about the first use of our water smoker this weekend. For the 4th of July, I brought up our Char-Broil Water Smoker to cook up three sides of baby back ribs. I applied a dry rub to the ribs early in the morning, and a little after 1PM I lit the charcoals. The water smoker is quite simple in its operation. You fire up the coals until there is a light grey ash covering them, then put a pot of near boling water over the coals, then over the pot of water on a grill rack you put the piggies. Wait 4-5 hours and dinner is served. I put the ribs on at 1:30PM and waited. After about 2 1/2 hours, I added a little more charcoal to the smoker. Once you get the smoker up to temp, you really do not want to disturb it as any time you open it, you vent off heat and smoke and you add 15 or so minutes to your cooking time. Thus, I only added charcoal once during the cooking process.

At 6PM, I opened the top of the smoker and the ribs were clearly done. The rub, which consisted of brown sugar, pepper, paprika and garlic power, had carmelized and the ribs with a delightful deep brown coating. During the last hour of smoking, I cooked a home made BBQ sauced to apply on the ribs at the table. I am happy to report that my first smoking of the season went extremely well. The meat fell off the bones and the sauce was fantastic. If you like ribs and will be in the area soon, drop me a note and I will be happy to fire up the smoker and have you over for dinner.