Behold My Butt! (2007– )

[snowangel]

Some pictures from this weekend's smoke:

Those three bullets look so good in the grotto. Beautiful job on the meat! mmm. Anyone know if it's ok to smoke on a townhouse patio? Are we talking a LOT of smoke?

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You may or may not get a lot of smoke. And, if you're anything like my honey, you'll think that smoke smell is beguiliing!

I'm brisketing this weekend, and give that the brisket is only 11 pounds, I'm tempted to try and score a small bone-in butt and add it to the Trusty Kettle so I have some alternative for those who don't do smoked brisket ( ).

[Daddy-A]

I'm tempted to try and score a small bone-in butt and add it to the Trusty Kettle so I have some alternative for those who don't do smoked brisket ( ).

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They exist????

A.

[snowangel]

I'm tempted to try and score a small bone-in butt and add it to the Trusty Kettle so I have some alternative for those who don't do smoked brisket ( ).

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They exist????

A.

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We can only hope, because the tally of people is now up to 30 and the brisket only weighs 12 pounds raw (correction from earlier post)!

[SheenaGreena]

instead of starting a new thread, I'll just post my question here.

Memorial day is tomorrow, but I refuse to wait to have my pulled pork. Instead, I'm making it today. I am following a recipe from america's test kitchen and the recipe says to smoke the meat for 3 hours and then finish it in oven for another 2 hours. Unfortunately the recipe calls for a 6-8 lb pork shoulder and well that is just WAY too much pulled pork for my boyfriend and I. Instead I purchased a 4.25 lb picnic roast (the recipe said this was okay) and I was wondering if I had to alter the cooking time?

Also, I cut off all of the skin on the outside of the roast and there is a lot of fat left on. Should I trim it all off? I am guessing no...or should I trim a little of it off?

oh and horror of all horrors, I don't have a meat thermometer. Sorry guys....I know I'm going to hell for that

[rooftop1000]

No More Trimming

and 5 hours still sounds about right, If you have a bone in there wait untill the meat pulls way back off of it. If not you can stick a couple of forks in it and twist when you think its getting close.

enjoy, having mine tomorrow its huge

tracey

[SheenaGreena]

sounds good, thanks for the help

i just made an east carolina sauce, a carolina mustard sauce, and for my boyfriend I'm going to make a good ol'memphis style sauce. I can't wait.

too bad my digi cam doesn't work.

if anyone else has anymore suggestions...I'm all ears

[snowangel]

The only other piece of advice I have to that Cook's Illustrated's temp (I'm not sure what they recommend for the smoking temp) is probably too high, and no, you don't want to start it out at room temp. Start with the pork cold!

[Chris Amirault]

Susan and the gang here know their butts: low & slow, start cold, no such thing as "too much fat." If you've got the time, keep the heat no more than 250F (or lower if you have enough beer).

[SheenaGreena]

Susan and the gang here know their butts: low & slow, start cold, no such thing as "too much fat." If you've got the time, keep the heat no more than 250F (or lower if you have enough beer).

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you mean 250F for the oven temp? or the grill? I was actually going to start the pork cold...the recipe said to leave it out at room temp for an hour before I grill, but I figured since the meat is not that big that it wouldn't matter

How many times do you think I have to change the charcoal?

[SheenaGreena]

also do you think it would make a difference if I soaked my wood chips in beer or just plain water?

[lancastermike]

Shenna what sort of device are you going to use to do the smoking? the size of picnic you have should be fine. I would think you can finish the whole thing on your smoking device without having to move to the oven. As always, Susan has provided perfect advice. The fat is your smoking friend and put it on cold.

I wish all the weekend smokers good luck and happy smoking. I would love to be doing a big holiday smoke, but have been waylaid by a ruptured spinal disc. I wonder if smoking percocet would be a good idea?

Just last week I lucked into some nice cherry ready for the smoker. Oh well, I hope to be back in smoking form sometime soon.

[SheenaGreena]

thanks susan for the advice!

I don't have a smoker, so I am using a (small) weber grill. I was wondering about just smoking the meat and not putting it in the oven. I was hoping for more smoke flavor and maybe smoking it to the end is a good idea? I want to eat the meat today though so I don't know how long it would take to smoke it

eta: don't smoke the percocet, crush it up and add it to some beer/booze

Edited May 27, 2007 by SheenaGreena (log)

[lancastermike]

also do you think it would make a difference if I soaked my wood chips in beer or just plain water?

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it will make no difference

[stephle]

Some pictures from this weekend's smoke:

Those three bullets look so good in the grotto. Beautiful job on the meat! mmm. Anyone know if it's ok to smoke on a townhouse patio?

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In my experience, it typically depends on how much you share with the homeowners president

We used to have a very small patio in our townhouse -- I would shamelessly smoke regularly out there on my Brinkman water smoker (the one that was like 18" across and 3 feet high) -- patio was just big enough to fit.

It generated a fair amount of smoke, especially while I was still learning how to control smoke, heat, etc but it was never enough to set off smoke detectors or anything. On breezy days, I did have to shut the patio slider to prevent the smoke from blowing back into the house, but other than that, no problems.

To be honest, the biggest hassle with smoking on the small patio was cleanup -- always a bear trying to get the drip pan into the house where I could drain/clean it up (not enough room on the patio and no running water).

I'd go for it (so long as your HOA rules don't have anything against fire on patios or anything). Might not hurt to share some of the finished product with neighbors on either side to proactively prevent complaints. best, steph.

[SheenaGreena]

I just wanted to say thank you to tracey, susan, chris, and mike for all the great advice- I should've followed it more closely...

I started marinating my pork at 8:00 am and I threw it on the grill at 11:00 am (should've marinated it at least overnight, but I wanted to eat that day).

Here are my major problems and what I should've done to fix them:

1) I used wood chips from the grocery store as opposed to large chunks of wood, which was a HUGE problem. I had to go up and down my back stairs to the grill at least every 15-20 mins, because the chips would stop smoking.

2) my weber grill lid was around 3 cm too small for the bottom part of grill, meaning that way too much smoke and heat was escaping. I bet that my downstairs neighbor (I live in a victorian that's been converted into 4 apts. I live on the 2nd floor) loved getting all that smoke blown into her bedroom and kitchen windows - It was 90F that day

3) I wanted to smoke the meat for at least 4 hours, but my boyfriend kept telling me to take it off at 3 - he should've listened to me

4) At 2pm I took the meat off of the grill and threw it into a 325F oven for 2hours checking twice to see if the meat would pull apart from the bone. At around 4pm it pulled apart from the meat.

5) I let it rest in a paper bag for an hour, after which I began to pull the meat - it was hot as hell after resting for an hour

6) overall the meat was a little dry towards the ouside of the skin. I should've smoked overnight, used a meat thermometer, or put it in the oven at a much lower temperature.

However, but making all of these mistakes I now know what I need to do next time to make a near perfect pulled pork sandwich. I also made 3 diff bbq sauces. I used a east nc vinegar recipe (very good) and a mustard based one from the carolinas from recipe gullet which was out of this world. Lastly I made your basic tomato based sweet sauce just for the hell of it.

[Marlene]

I use wood chips all the time. I've never run into that problem before.

[SheenaGreena]

I use wood chips all the time. I've never run into that problem before.

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maybe it was just me? or the fact that the grill lid didn't fit. I used over half of a small bag of wood chips.

[Marlene]

Hmm maybe it was the grill lid. I assume you soaked them first.

[SheenaGreena]

yes ma'am I did

[Marlene]

I thought you had said something upthread about soaking them. So, just weird. I don't think I have ever had to add wood chips, even on a 12 - 14 hour smoke. Who knows?

[Pam R]

I use wood chips too and never add any. Do you put them right on the coals or wrap them in foil and punch a few holes in the foil?

[SheenaGreena]

I put them right on the coals. I was going to use a foil pouch but I basically said screw it

[Pam R]

I've never tossed them right on the coals, but find that the foil technique works well. Last week when I smoked the beef shoulder, I used two foil packets, one on either side of the weber. There was no shortage of smoky flavour. I'd say give it a shot next time.

[Daddy-A]

I use wood chips all the time. I've never run into that problem before.

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maybe it was just me? or the fact that the grill lid didn't fit. I used over half of a small bag of wood chips.

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I'm almost positive it was the ill-fitting-lid. You want the wood to smolder, and with that much air getting let it, it's gonna burn (baby, burn).

If yoou're going to do this again, work on that lid problem, and keep an eye out for some solid wood, as opposed to chips. The solid wood chinks burn slower than chips too.

A.

[Toliver]

Unfortunately the recipe calls for a 6-8 lb pork shoulder and well that is just WAY too much pulled pork for my boyfriend and I. 

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Like there could be such a things as too much pulled pork.

Make the bigger cut next time and freeze the extra, portioned out. You'll have smoked pork goodness waiting for you whenever you crave it.