Campground Smoking: The Portable Smoker Debut Part 1 of 2

Alicia's birthday was just a few weeks ago, and we decided to take a few days off work and have a nice long camping trip. We had friends come and go while we were out there visiting, but on her big day, both our sets of parents came out to meet each other for the first time! Before you think this is a blog on the knot, and that I have forgotten what universe I am in, I'll let you know now that everything went great at their first meeting, and leave it at that.

Back to what you are here for: the food. Well, prior to this trip, against my better judgment I purchased the Brinkman Smoke N' Grill from Walmart.  For some reason, the price right now is substantially higher than what I paid, which was less than $40. I figured if it was terrible I could at least use it as a raw project and make it the way I wanted by modification. I was primarily concerned with the fact that it had no options for modulating temperature as there was no damper for either air intake nor exhaust. I was a bit worried since I was smoking a small butt for our families and this was to be the only entree for Alicia's birthday meal, and the smoker was completely untested. We devised a plan before we went camping, and I decided to make some ribs the night before I did the butt.

Ribs take substantially less time to cook properly than a Boston butt, and my hope was that I could get at least a good feel for the smoker with our test run. I started with a rack of pork spare ribs, rubbed down in my rub blend, and let the smoker get up to temp. Well, up to temp in whatever sense of the phrase there was, since the only 'thermometer' on this thing is a "Warm-Ideal-Hot" gauge that is almost worthless.

Anyhow, I got the ribs going, and they smoked for about 4 hours. I had no temp gauge on the smoker and forgot my meat thermo, so I had to eyeball it. I applied my Western NC BBQ sauce to the ribs about 30 minutes before I pulled them off.

A couple of observations about the smoker: 1) It is not large enough to fit a single rack of ribs - so I had to cut them in half, a thought I despise. 2) Despite the lack of temperature control through dampers, I honestly think the temperature was roughly where it should be, and it just stuck there. 3) The saving grace of the unit is the water pan, it's the only thing that prevents the incredible heat from the charcoal from scorching your food; which makes 4) the unit useless as a two rack unit. It can be setup with two racks for food, but I don't see how it's possible to use it with two racks and not destroy the food on the bottom rack.

Anyhow - so we ate the food and...

Unfortunately, it felt as though the meat did not thoroughly break down to sufficient levels while on the smoker. It was definitely done, but the ribs felt a bit rubbery, and lacked the normal consistency which I am accustomed to on the home smoker. They tasted okay, they seemed to lack some smoke for the amount of wood chips I had put in, but they were edible, and I learned some useful information for the next day.

Anyway, enjoy the pictures, and please stay tuned for the conclusion of this Two Part Series on The Portable Smoker. You won't want to miss it.