Breaking in the Meadow Creek BX25 Box Smoker

The Meadow Creek BX25 Box Smoker is efficient, maintains temperature like nobody's business, and has a compact footprint. Keep reading for tantalizing photos of baby back ribs, sausage links, pork tenderloins, and baked beans on the BX25!

The BX25 has a sleek and tight design with just the right capacity for personal use. I couldn't help but fall in love with it from the first cook!

Here's a sneak peek of the ribs and beans.

The BX25 Box Smoker ready to fire for the first time!

This one has the optional stainless steel interior, which is a highly recommended upgrade. Stainless steel eliminates the possibility of rust or peeling primer/paint contaminating your food.

Meadow Creek's box smokers work well with or without the water. Some prefer to cook with water and others prefer to use it dry. It's really a matter of preference, but the water keeps the humidity very high in the smoker, which steams the meat and creates a softer bark than it would in a dry smoker.

The water pan slides into the side of the smoker and is secured with postive-lock latches. The 5-gallon water jug rests on the port on top of the water pan.

The BX25 Box Smoker comes with three T304 food-grade stainless steel grates and can hold a total of six grates. The smoker and grates are nothing short of handsome.

I opened the vents all the way, put roughly 8 pounds of charcoal briquettes into the charcoal basket, and lit them with my propane torch. You can add more briquettes for longer cooks as long as you leave enough room for a log split or several wood chunks.

Once the coals are lit, the smoker should be getting close to 200 degrees F. From there you can start dialing in the temperature by closing down the bottom vents.

I added a split of pecan on top of the coals. This was enough fuel and smoke flavor for the entire cook.

Each BX25 grate holds two racks of baby back ribs. Here I'm cooking four racks of Swift Premium baby back ribs from Weis, a local chain grocery store.

I coated the ribs with Meat Glue and then a mixture of Meadow Creek Brisket Rub and Meadow Creek Gourmet Seasoning.

The sausage links were the Weis brand. Their recipe is a favorite of mine. The pork tenderloins were Swift Premium, same as the ribs.

The beans were BUSH'S Original Baked Beans. I added some barbecue seasoning and a handful of rib trimmings.

The biggest challenge with this first cook was getting the smoker up to 225 degrees F after I added the meat. It wanted to hover around 210 degrees. Part of the problem was that I had the door open a lot to take photos, so it's a bit hard to tell exactly how it would have handled under normal operation. Having said that, I felt like it did an incredible job of holding a steady temperature for a long time. I look forward to mastering the firing process for my target temperature.

The ribs were in the smoke for 3 hours and then we wrapped them in aluminum foil.

After 75 minutes in the foil, we sauced the top side of the racks with Sweet Baby Ray's sauce and set them back in the smoker.

If these ribs aren't beautiful, I'm not sure what is!

After 30-45 minutes back on the grate unwrapped, the ribs were ready to slice and eat!

These ribs were tender and delicious with a nice smoke ring.

Served with fries and smoked beans, this was a meal to remember.

The sausages disappeared quickly. These are delicious sliced into chunks or on bread with a little sauce and a slice of cheese.

Pork tenderloin is a lean cut so these are best cooked to only 145 degrees. The tenderloins got a little too hot by mistake and because of that, some of them were a bit dry. But they were still edible and the rest of my success made up for it.