Dinner is over and it was good. The country style lamb ribs were satisfactory. They were tender but they had veins of tough material running through them. If you cut around that, the meat was very good. It seem that the pork country style rib was tastier.
Now the chicken was whole different story. I usually coat the chicken with some yellow mustard so that the rub will adhere to the surface. This time, I coated the chicken with mayo and then applied my rub. Then I injected the chicken with Wishbone Buffalo Ranch salad dressing which also had Frank's hot sauce in it. This was the most moist chicken that I have ever cooked including a home oven. My wife raved about the chicken.
We just served this with coleslaw. The juice flowing from the back of the plate came from a small piece of chicken breast.
I am not sure that I would purchase lamb country style ribs again but I wish that I could get a rack of lamb to smoke or maybe a leg of lamb might be nice as well.
I will definitely do the chicken again with mayo and that buffalo ranch dressing.
Couple of observations about wood smoking: first, I am using Royal Oak Lump Charcoal. It is a very good charcoal and burns hot and it burns fast. So it is gone in a couple of hours. I thought that it would last a little longer. Second, small split logs work the best. Until you really have a nice base of coals, a little larger log take longer to ignite and fire up.
Less is more. You really do not have to stack up a pile of logs in the fire box. I find that when the coals get hot to about 150 degrees, then I apply a couple of small logs. When the temperature reaches between 200 and 210 degrees, then I put another log on and move the damper to 50 per cent.
I like to do my cooking at 225 degrees. I find that it can fluctuate between 210 and 230 degrees depending how I am fussing with the damper. Movement of the damper has to be done with touches in small movements. Everything actually should be done in small movements.
The next cook will be on Sunday, when I attempt a Tri Tip for the first time. This will be cooked on the pellet smoker.
Happy smoking!
Ed