This weekend is another long weekend, so that means another chance at playing with the smoker! This time, I wanted to try smoking our favorite meatloaf recipe and K requested the mac and cheese again. I also impulse-bought a pre-marinated rack of pork spare ribs because if I’m going to lug out the smoker, might as well make it count.

For the meatloaf, I used the same recipe as our oven version, but with a few extra prep steps: I pre-cooked and cooled the veggies before forming the loaf, and I also shaped and froze it, then let it defrost in the fridge slightly before smoking. Supposedly this helps the loaf keep its shape, but it extended the cook time to almost four hours (going from 38F to 160F at 250F).

For mac and cheese v2, I used block cheese instead of pre-shredded, and a mix of heavy cream and whole milk instead of just whole milk, but the core of the recipe was basically unchanged. I’m glad I got foil roasting pans because it wouldn’t have fit in the cast iron skillet.

Finally, the ribs were your standard grocery store pre-marinated, pre-trimmed spare ribs, St Louis cut. I wasn’t planning on making ribs, but they were on sale, so why not. I was barely able to fit everything in the smoker, so it worked out.

Everything turned out quite well! I smoked the mac and cheese for a little less time (1hr 20m), so the smokiness wasn’t nearly as overpowering as it was in v1, and the block cheese and cream definitely made a difference; v2 was clearly better than v1. The meatloaf tasted the same as usual, but you could taste a slight smoky flavor. The only mistake was I used my usual spice rub on the spare ribs. Since they were already marinated, they ended up being a tad too salty.

One thing I’ll watch for is the thinner half of the spare ribs hit temp much sooner than the meatier part, and the smaller ends were a little dry. I’ll try placing them on different racks next time; the heating element is on the bottom, so let’s see how much of a difference that makes. Getting the timing for done-ness is pretty tricky, and I think I’ve been spoiled too much with sous vide ribs…but it’s also fun learning a new cooking toy.

Overall, we’re happy with amount of smoke flavor in this batch, so 2oz of hickory chips seems like the sweet spot. Plus, we’ve been doing the meal prep freezer thing lately, so now we’re all stocked up again!

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