Smoking Food Thread

Did you tie them up? With some of the butts they tend to spread open during the cook. Normally, it doesn't bother me, because the extra surface area means it'll cook faster and produce more bark. It just goes against the usual time and temp for a bone in butt.

tsywake said:

Did you tie them up? With some of the butts they tend to spread open during the cook. Normally, it doesn't bother me, because the extra surface area means it'll cook faster and produce more bark. It just goes against the usual time and temp for a bone in butt.

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Again, the context of this thread is so, so critical.

tsywake said:

Did you tie them up? With some of the butts they tend to spread open during the cook. Normally, it doesn't bother me, because the extra surface area means it'll cook faster and produce more bark. It just goes against the usual time and temp for a bone in butt.

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I didn't have the desire to tie up 14 butts after being on the lake all day yesterday. I stacked them on their side so they didn't spread out so bad. Pulled a few of the slower cookers this morning, wrapped them in foil and stuck them in the oven.

I definitely think the bone speeds up the cooking. These are cooking slower than I'd hoped.

WFU71 said:

OK, Oklahoma Joe's brisket recipe is great - a bit spicy for my taste, but everyone else thought it was just right.

It took forever to cook on my Brinkman. I finished it off in the oven and lucked out by pulling it at the right time.

Thanks to JDawg for posting the recipe.

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I did the same thing. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.

You're welcome.

RacerDeac said:

I definitely think the bone speeds up the cooking. These are cooking slower than I'd hoped.

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I think a lot of it has to do with the person who butchered them. I've seen quite a bit of inconsistency in the boneless cuts. Some are minimally cut and other look like they were cut with a chainsaw. The full shoulder is still my favorite to cook by far.

Well, the weekend was a success. I'm still getting emails this morning from folks who missed me yesterday. :thumbsup:

I think it was the best pulled pork I've ever done. Changed up my rub a bit, and after sampling some really good BBQ at Queen City Q here in CLT, I decided to chuck a hefty amount of rub and some apple cider vinegar into the mix as I was pulling it. That was the ticket. The meat didn't neat dip/sauce at all.

I also made up my standard Eastern and Lexington dips, but decided to add a Mustard to the mix since we had a lot of SC/GA natives in attendance. The mustard ended up being everyone's favorite. I'm not usually a mustard fan, but after the compliments I decided to try it and came away impressed myself. The recipe I used had a lot of vinegar and spice added in, which helps a lot compared to the normal sweet mustards I've had in the past

The guy dating my GF's sister made "ribs" yesterday. They were awful. To be fair his flavor was decent on the one where he did his own rub, bit one slab was store bought prepared and he didn't do anything to the meat other than put on a rub, smoke out, and sauce it.

Basically it just made me want real ribs.

DeaconCav06 said:

The guy dating my GF's sister made "ribs" yesterday. They were awful. To be fair his flavor was decent on the one where he did his own rub, bit one slab was store bought prepared and he didn't do anything to the meat other than put on a rub, smoke out, and sauce it.

Basically it just made me want real ribs.

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I've found that few really know what real ribs are. Because they don't "keep" well like pulled pork or chicken while still taking hours to cook, it's really, really rare to get good ribs even in restaurants that specialize in BBQ/smoking. It's basically impossible to get good ribs in non-BBQ restaurants where most people encounter them. It's amazing how many people I run across who are otherwise great cooks, or even chefs, who think they are turning out great product when they parboil ribs or cook them in a crock-pot/oven and then toss them on the grill for a few minutes. Every time I've done ribs at a tailgate there's at least one person who comments that they had no idea ribs could be that good...and I don't have a great rib sauce that I'm happy with yet.

I'm planning on doing a shoulder or two for 4th of July plus a giant package from the butcher on the grill. Once I get the details I'll toss that in the grilling thread. Needless to say, I'm excited.

Racer, did you happen to get a picture of the butts on the WSM? I'm anxious to see how she looks packed to the gills.

tsywake said:

Racer, did you happen to get a picture of the butts on the WSM? I'm anxious to see how she looks packed to the gills.

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I didn't. After being on the lake all day and barely making it to Costco on time, I was nervous about getting things started in time to be done the next day, so I didn't stop to document. Needless to say, it was packed. I have the 18.5 inch, so the outer bits of a couple butts got nice and charred due to the direct heat that rises up the sides, but those bits provided some nice bark after sitting for an hour with the rest of the BBQ before serving. They reminded me of a pork version of burnt ends.

A great advantage of cooking for large groups, some will like it burnt, others will like it less done. I rarely move stuff around on my smoker from slightly warmer to cooler areas unless there is a huge difference. I typically keep them separated when serving and just ask people what they prefer. I don't understand it, but some people want ribs so done that you can gum the meat off the bones. Not my preference, but if they want it' that's what I'll give them.

The comment you made earlier about adding some vinegar and rub to the meat as you pull it was a good one. I saw that a while back on one of the BBQ shows with the pitmaster from the Starlight Inn. I used to heavily rub the meats to get the right amount of flavor in the final product. I started adding just enough rub to get the color and texture of the bark I want, and then added some to it as I was chopping or pulling it. My rub consumption dropped a hefty amount after changing that up.

I'll hopefully take some pictures tonight. I've got the panels off the trailer and stripped it down to the frame. It looks so plain, and after moving everything into my basement, I cant believe how much stuff we had on there. I'm pretty excited about the redesign. It should increase our efficiency and space usage.

tsywake said:

The comment you made earlier about adding some vinegar and rub to the meat as you pull it was a good one. I saw that a while back on one of the BBQ shows with the pitmaster from the Starlight Inn. I used to heavily rub the meats to get the right amount of flavor in the final product. I started adding just enough rub to get the color and texture of the bark I want, and then added some to it as I was chopping or pulling it. My rub consumption dropped a hefty amount after changing that up.

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The key is that there is now some color and flavor to all of the meat as opposed to just the bark that carries the rub/smoke. My rub has a lot of Paprika, so it definitely adds some color to the meat (it almost looks sauced). Noted, the need for more flavor can be solved with heavy saucing, but I've gotten to where I like pulled pork that stands on it's own and the sauce is just another small layer of flavor to add.

Naked and Afraid could be used to describe the tailgate trailer. She's shedding some lbs, and will come back leaner and better than ever.

so I'm used to doing an 8-10 lb bone-in shoulder....today I'm picking up two 6 lb boneless. If they get on by 6-7 am and I usually use 250 degrees, I should be good by like 7 or 8 right? I can always audible with the oven/foil of course

JDawg said:

so I'm used to doing an 8-10 lb bone-in shoulder....today I'm picking up two 6 lb boneless. If they get on by 6-7 am and I usually use 250 degrees, I should be good by like 7 or 8 right? I can always audible with the oven/foil of course

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Should be fine.

I need to buy a cooler anyway so I'll have that on standby in case things go significantly quicker than that too. I'll just set my alarm for six, start up the smoker and have it on by 7 I suppose.

Gracias.

Smoked a butt over the weekend. My wife bought me the BBQ Guru CyberQ temperate control for my birthday and it was the first time using it. It is pretty cool but I kind of feel like it was cheating.

Did the six lb boneless for almost 12 hours on Saturday, it was wonderful. Plus it was my first time breaking in the bear paws which were a wonder....destroyed that thing effortlessly in about two minutes. Big hit for the small group, definitely impressed, now I have to decide if I want to tackle it on Thursday or not.

I took before pictures but none after. Didn't feel like taking pictures of leftovers was right. Merp.

OriginalAdmiral said:

Smoked a butt over the weekend. My wife bought me the BBQ Guru CyberQ temperate control for my birthday and it was the first time using it. It is pretty cool but I kind of feel like it was cheating.

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Is it as easy to use as the website makes it seem? From doing a little research of my own, it seems like the thing is pretty much lets you fire and forget.