Where there's smoke...

...there's baby back ribs!

My brother-in-law, Drew, who is an experienced hunter, gave G.W. a most excellent Christmas present this year. A Bradley Smoker. It's a pretty nifty deal that's about as foolproof as you can get. Drew got us the smoker so that we can add another dimension to cooking game. Think smoked pheasant or elk sausage!

The smoker uses these 'bisquettes" and automatically feeds them into the burner for continual smoke with hardly any babysitting or fussing. Each bisquette is good for 20 minutes of smoke. Very, very slick.

We unpacked and assembled it today.  It was ready to roll in less than 10 minutes.Talk about easy! 

In order to get rid of any weird chemical smell from the new components, it's recommended that you season the smoker for an hour before using it for food. We loaded in some bisquettes, fired 'er up and let her go.

Here's how the bisquetts feed automatically. The one on the right is on the burner.

After 30 minutes, the heat was up over 160 degrees. The recommendation is to keep the temperature at 150 for the seasoning period, so I backed the heat down just a bit.

Once the hour was up, it was time for the test run. I chose baby back ribs for the maiden voyage. 

The little recipe booklet that came with the smoker recommends pre-cooking the ribs in the oven at 350 degrees for one hour. They cooked during the hour I had to wait for the new smoker to season.  I used a purchased rub from Cabela's...their "All-purpose" rub.

Once the ribs were done in the oven, I brushed them with some BBQ sauce, then popped them into the smoker. I used hickory bisquettes.

 

Then every 30 minutes, I spritzed them with some apple cider vinegar and brushed on some more BBQ sauce.

I also put some baked beans into a cast iron pan and stuck them into the smoker. They went in under the rack with the ribs so that anything that dripped off the ribs would go into the beans.

Since there was still some room, I tossed a couple of fresh jalapenos onto the rack. Why not, right?

After 2 1/2 hours in the smoker, we pulled the ribs out. They looked beautiful!

While they weren't falling off the bone, they were tender, juicy and had an amazing smoke flavor. Not bad for a first attempt! The beans, which were straight out of a can, also had a nice smokey flavor.

The jalapenos should have had more time in the smoke, but I'll use them as is in beef chili.

Next time, I think I'll smoke the ribs longer and baste/spritz more often. G.W. said he's willing to "take one for the team" and be my taste tester. What a guy, huh?

My next smoking project is salmon, trout and chicken. Stay tuned for the results!