What is a good first cook?

[jdebuhr]

I am taking delivery of my Ironwood 885 on Friday, after I do the initial seasoning of it. What are a couple suggested first cooks?

I will preface while I will do some beef on it, my wife does not eat beef, so that will get done when I am feed more than my family.

I also am not sure when I will get to my first cook, it will be about 10deg F when I get my grill so I am concerned that it will have trouble getting to temperature for the seasoning process

Lastly suggestion on pellet flavors will help too.

 

[MidwestSmoker]

My recommendation is country ribs. Hard to mess up and will give you a good feel for the grill:

In my opinion the pellet flavors don't matter much. Use anything that you have.

 

[jdebuhr]

My recommendation is country ribs. Hard to mess up and will give you a good feel for the grill:

In my opinion the pellet flavors don't matter much. Use anything that you have.

Thanks.. as for Pellets, I have not gotten any yet..

 

[Like Smoke]

My first smoke was a couple of slabs of spare ribs, low and slow. Used apple cider / apple cider vinegar brushed on and in the catch pan and finished off with Sweet Baby Ray BBQ sauce. Came out great. Ribs are pretty forgiving for a trial smoke. I used fruit wood pellets because that is all I had, lately I have been pretty satisfied with Pit Boss Comp blend, but also keep around some apple for foul and hickory for various proteins. Welcome to the site and good eats.

 

[RayClem]

Some of the easiest cooks to do on the Traeger would be a whole chicken or a split chicken breast. Be careful with boneless, skinless chicken breasts as it is easy to dry them out. My first chicken breasts were like jerky; I learned from my mistake.

If your family likes eating pork, making pulled pork from a pork butt is nearly foolproof. In general, large pieces of meat are more forgiving than smaller pieces, so a 8# pork butt is rather easy.

I also like doing pork chops on the Traeger. Be sure to get thick cut chops. They are more forgiving than thin cuts. It a large chop is more than you can eat, cut it in half after cooking rather than before.

 

[Parrothead1809]

This one:

BBQ Spatchcocked Chicken Recipe - Traeger Grills

Trey this spatchcocked chicken on your pellet grill. Seasoned with our chicken rub, brushed with sweet & heat bbq sauce and BBQ'd to wood-fired perfection.

www.traeger.com

-PH

 

[BobbyQ]

Ribs. I did baby back first time but now I’m partial to St. Louis. Not too hard

 

[drich]

I am taking delivery of my Ironwood 885 on Friday, after I do the initial seasoning of it. What are a couple suggested first cooks?

I will preface while I will do some beef on it, my wife does not eat beef, so that will get done when I am feed more than my family.

I also am not sure when I will get to my first cook, it will be about 10deg F when I get my grill so I am concerned that it will have trouble getting to temperature for the seasoning process

Lastly suggestion on pellet flavors will help too.

Baby back ribs (or St. Louis) just follow the Traeger 3-2-1 instructions and remember to raise the grill level up a notch and use the supper smoke setting. After you smoke them for 3 hours, wrap the each rib rack in 2 sheets of 18" aluminum foil. Be sure to be careful after they have cooked for the required 2 hours that you do not burn yourself on the steam that come out when you open the foil. They should turn out perfect. That's the first thing we cooked.

 

[drich]

Baby back ribs (or St. Louis) just follow the Traeger 3-2-1 instructions and remember to raise the grill level up a notch and use the supper smoke setting. After you smoke them for 3 hours, wrap the each rib rack in 2 sheets of 18" aluminum foil. Be sure to be careful after they have cooked for the required 2 hours that you do not burn yourself on the steam that come out when you open the foil. They should turn out perfect. That's the first thing we cooked.

As for pellets I like pecan or oak. However I really can not tell the difference with my 80 yr old taster. LOL

 

[Slimpicker]

I also am not sure when I will get to my first cook, it will be about 10deg F when I get my grill so I am concerned that it will have trouble getting to temperature for the seasoning process

jdebuhr If you can, I would wait even for the season smoke... I'm in STL MO and it'll be back to almost 40° by wed of next week. If you can wait till Chicago gets back into the 30s, I'd do that for my seasoning smoke.​

Don't wanna be Mr. Bummer but you season smoke is supposed to get up to like 400° or more... you're gonna have a tough time in 10°
It's DOABLE but your season smoke is supposed to burn off factory oils and residue, the warmer it is outside the better to accomplish this.

Just give it some thought, that's all. (seeing as you don't even know when your 1st smoke will be)

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[Murphy's Law]

If you want to show off a little and cook a veggie dish to show the family that the grill is more than just for meat, there is a great cauliflower dish on the Traeger app. Search for "parmesan roasted cauliflower".

 

[patstock11]

ribs or pork butt is the easiest most obvious answer to me

 

[RayClem]

If you want to show off a little and cook a veggie dish to show the family that the grill is more than just for meat, there is a great cauliflower dish on the Traeger app. Search for "parmesan roasted cauliflower".

Good point. There are many vegetable recipes that turn out great on the Traeger. I like roasted broccoli, corn on the cob, green beans, baked beans, baked potatoes, and squash/zucchini mix. However, that is just a sampling of things you can do .

 

[jdebuhr]

Well I am leaning towards ribs. However I have yet to even plug it in and season it... waiting for warmer weather (currently -4 here)

 

[jersmith26]

Highly recommend pork butt, a fairly inexpensive piece of meat and near impossible to screw up. Great tasting as well. I would not worry about which type of pellets to use, most folks would not know the difference.