H-Towner
Well-known member
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2017
- Location
- Houston, TX
I posted my previous experience with smoking a brisket on my tiny Weber here: http://bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=245293
My takeaway from that experience was that I really needed new equipment before trying that again. However, 6 weeks later I still had no new equipment, but I did have a 9 lb pork butt I picked up for 99c/lb. So there I was again smoking on the same undersized equipment.
Here's how it went: (I throw this out there to keep a record for myself and to get feedback, but also I hope to make the process less mysterious for other newbs like me.)
I bought the meat on Friday, but couldn't smoke till Sunday evening, so I dry brined it with 1/2 tbsp. kosher salt per lb and threw it in the fridge.
With limited space, I wanted to make the meat more compact, so before cooking I bound it up.
Here's my charcoal snake. Starting late in the afternoon, I only had about 6 hours to cook, before transferring it to the oven. This amount was more than enough. The pan was used to define my indirect zone and catch drippings. I didn't put water in it.
Here's the meat on the grill rubbed down with Dillo Dust. That's pecan wood on the coals. I maintained that spacing of wood the whole length of the snake. I targeted 250*. I'm really not sure I hit that number well, since I can never trust my probe placement when there's very little grill that's not either under the meat or over the coals.
I was given this rub as a gift, and didn't really know how it would turn out. I had been sprinkling it on vegetables to good effect before this cook.
At 5 1/2 hours it started raining, so we quickly transferred it to the oven at 225*. Here it is going in.
Here it is after 18 hours (WHAT???!!!) having finally reached 195*. I figured I was trading moisture for tenderness, and I chose tenderness.
The bone pulled out easily (once the bark let go of it) and it shredded well. The bark was pretty salty, I'm not sure whether to blame that more on the amount of salt I used for the dry brine, or that salt is the 2nd ingredient in the rub (after sugar.) It still tasted good.
Here's the sandwich. No complaints at all with this. My wife made the slaw with a bag of slaw veggies from the produce section, mayo, apple cider vinegar, celery seed, salt and pepper. Since we omitted barbecue sauce so as not to mask the pork, we amped up the vinegar content of the slaw to compensate. It was the right move.
My takeaway from this experience:
My takeaway from that experience was that I really needed new equipment before trying that again. However, 6 weeks later I still had no new equipment, but I did have a 9 lb pork butt I picked up for 99c/lb. So there I was again smoking on the same undersized equipment.
Here's how it went: (I throw this out there to keep a record for myself and to get feedback, but also I hope to make the process less mysterious for other newbs like me.)
I bought the meat on Friday, but couldn't smoke till Sunday evening, so I dry brined it with 1/2 tbsp. kosher salt per lb and threw it in the fridge.
With limited space, I wanted to make the meat more compact, so before cooking I bound it up.
Here's my charcoal snake. Starting late in the afternoon, I only had about 6 hours to cook, before transferring it to the oven. This amount was more than enough. The pan was used to define my indirect zone and catch drippings. I didn't put water in it.
Here's the meat on the grill rubbed down with Dillo Dust. That's pecan wood on the coals. I maintained that spacing of wood the whole length of the snake. I targeted 250*. I'm really not sure I hit that number well, since I can never trust my probe placement when there's very little grill that's not either under the meat or over the coals.
I was given this rub as a gift, and didn't really know how it would turn out. I had been sprinkling it on vegetables to good effect before this cook.
At 5 1/2 hours it started raining, so we quickly transferred it to the oven at 225*. Here it is going in.
Here it is after 18 hours (WHAT???!!!) having finally reached 195*. I figured I was trading moisture for tenderness, and I chose tenderness.
The bone pulled out easily (once the bark let go of it) and it shredded well. The bark was pretty salty, I'm not sure whether to blame that more on the amount of salt I used for the dry brine, or that salt is the 2nd ingredient in the rub (after sugar.) It still tasted good.
Here's the sandwich. No complaints at all with this. My wife made the slaw with a bag of slaw veggies from the produce section, mayo, apple cider vinegar, celery seed, salt and pepper. Since we omitted barbecue sauce so as not to mask the pork, we amped up the vinegar content of the slaw to compensate. It was the right move.
My takeaway from this experience:
- This was a lot easier than the brisket. Multiple people commented after my brisket cook that pork shoulder is a more forgiving meat, and they were right. 18 hours cooking, I was ready for the meat to be as dry as a popcorn fart, but it was not. To be sure, it could have been more moist, but it forgave a lot.
- Friends raved about this pork, even reheated several days later. Granted, these were not barbecue snobs, but it goes to show that it doesn't have to be hard to make great tasting barbecue at home. This was only my second attempt at smoking anything other than salmon.
- My oven thermometer cannot be trusted. While the meat was in the oven, I kept the probe in the meat, and trusted that the oven was at 225*. I checked on it after 6 hours (11.5 hr total cook time) and the meat was still at 170*. Another 2 hours and the meat was still at 170*. I figured that to be at stall temp at 13.5 hrs, then my oven temp was way too low. After that I kept incrementing the oven temp up and by noon (18 hrs) the meat finally hit 195*. I guess I need a dual probe thermometer even for my oven.
- I probably didn't need to dry brine, but the meat was going to be sitting in the fridge for 2 days anyway, and I didn't think it could hurt anything. And while I liked the rub, I'm not sure it did much more that flavor the bark, but I guess there's value in that.
- I still struggle with monitoring grill temps. In the cramped confines of the 18" Weber, the grill space is either meat or fire. I placed the probe next to the meat on the far side from the fire (as you can see above.) I figured that would probably read too low, but I'd rather underestimate the fire than overestimate it.
