Yesterday's Smoking Experience

Yesterday's smoking experience was a good one. The Andouille looks great, I'm going to let it hang in the basement for 1 or 2 days, I'll see how it looks tonight. I started out with 24 charcoal briquettes that I heated in a chimney starter for 15 minutes. I put them in the smoker in a pile to one side. I used a mixture of apple and hickory chips that were soaked overnight in hot sauce, then soaked in water for 2 hours before smoking. I looked for Pecan wood, I found every type of wood but: Alder, Apple, Cherry, Maple, Mesquite. Everything but Pecan. I've read Pecan wood is a little more subtle than Hickory as well as a little sweeter. So I decided to use a mixture of the delicate and sweet Apple and the deeper flavored Hickory. I changed chips about every 20 minutes or so. When they turn black they start to give off a bitter smoke. White smoke is good, black smoke is bad. Anyway, the temperature outside was about 50 degrees F and the highest my smoker reached was about 120 degrees F, that's pretty good. I smoked the links for 4 hours at an average temperature of about 100 degrees. I was shooting for 80 degrees F, but 100 degrees is great. I used a water bowl on the middle shelf filled with ice to cool the smoke down before it reached the meat; it worked well. I will post a pic of the finished product when it is ready. Of course, the true test will be the first dish that I cook with it.