Backwoods Smoker - First Cook

I have been looking forward to doing the first cook on my Backwoods FatBoy from the moment I placed my order for my cookers with Backwoods Smoker. I thought it was a great start to have them arrive just over two weeks ahead of schedule. Having been active on a number of Boards for quite a while, some folks may know that I’ve cooked on / with a number of different cookers and I have to say all have been good quality. I think the more you cook the more your understanding of cookers increase which would explain why this newest one is so good and why I have not been significantly disappointed in one so far. I unloaded my intial order of cookers Monday June 29 and took a Fatboy and Chubby home to burn in and season and do some practice cooks with before mounting inside my cooking trailer in a few weeks. At 9:55 a.m. yesterday I lit a full load of Royal Oak Lump with a weed burner in each of the 4 corners of the fire box and once in the center. Since I had rubbed the entire inside of the cooker down with Pam and a cotton cloth and planned to run the cooker at 350 I thought lighting it this way would speed up the process. My only mistake was forgetting that these cookers have two bottom vents and after starting the guru (mounted on left side next to water valve) I forgot to close the right side until I finally figured out why the guru was over shooting the set temp. continued…

The temp never exceeded 450 but I had to shut it completely down to hold it to 450 and it was 2:00 p.m. before the temp came back down close enough to the 230 pitt temp I wanted so I could put my two 7.5 lb butts on. I used 3 lg chunks of hickory and 1 maple. I probed the meat (see pic below) at 5:30 and the meats were at 148 and 152 and that matched my thermopen.

When I checked it at 7:20 p.m. to see if I should foil or not I didn’t feel like it had enough bark on it, but looking at the pic now they look barky enough. That butternut squash had been in our tater box too long and took the place of the remote probe clip I couldn’t ever find.

They were foiled when they reached an internal temp of 175 for one and 180 on the other at 8:40 p.m, about 10 min after I added water for the 1 and only time to the cooker. . They were removed from the cooker to rest at 12:30. In the pic below you see them after they were pulled and they were both removed from the cooker to rest at the same time with the one in the first pic at 197 and the second one was 195 internal and you would think they would be identical, yet the first one seem cooked more because it pulled easier and you could slice those little rounds you see off of the second (less done one) easier.

If I had these at a contest, I would be feeling mighty good right now with my chances.
I know I’ve said this before about other cookers but this is the best cooker I have ever had bar none. I did add Stubbs natural briquets to the firebox after the seasoning as I thought it could not go the entire cook without them after running 4 hrs at 350 – 450 and when I checked this morning I still had briquets as well as lump. For those that might be considering a Backwoods but are hesitant about using a cooker with water (as I was), my advise is to forget that if it’s your only issue as I only added water once and it takes seconds to do and the cooker is back up to temp as fast as any cooker I’ve ever used. The clean up will surprise you too – unless you use pans to catch your grease, any cooker will have you cleaning the grease out but with Backwoods your not scraping burnt on grease. We just let the old grease water out and added some hot soapy water back to it and brushed the bottom (kinda like washing a pot or pan). If you could see me now you would be looking at a BIG SMIILE!