Memorial Day weekend Pork Butt

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tmoney

Newbie
Original poster
May 7, 2013
7
10
Appleton, WI
I decided to smoke a few pork butts for our memorial day camping trip.  This was my 2nd attempt ever.  I have the char griller duo with the side fire box, and it was just too big to take with us.   My father and i decided to construct a smoker out of aluminum garbage cans. (yes, they were new).  All and all the smoke was a success, we had a few mishaps along the way and will need to make some design adjustments for the future, but we put two 8 lb butts on at 7:40 am and they were done at 11:30 PM. 

Maybe you guys can give me some tips on improving or adjusting my smoker or the smoking process.

I used Bad Byrons Butt Rub... (I'm new to this so once i get the smoking down, i will play with my own rubs.) Did the mustard and the run the day before and kept it in the fridge.

Got up at 5 to get the fire going, but really had problems getting the smoker up to temp.  Once it got there, the can held the heat VERY well. 

Shoulders went on at 7:40.  Tried to keep the temp up at around the 240-250 range.  About 6 hours into the smoke, our temps dropped to about 130 degrees and we really stuggled to get it back up.   
 

Finally figured out that the grill grate in the fire box had melted and my coals were now on the bottom of the can with no air flow.  luckily i had an extra grill grate, so we did some tinkering and got the back up grate in there.  As soon as we did our temps went back to 240.  I think we lost about 1 1/2 hours for that process though. 

I had hoped to be done smoking around 8 or 9, but i just couldn't get the butts to move through the stall point.  ended up taking them off at 180 because people were hungry.  Still tasted amazing and had nothing left but the bone. 

Meat was a little tougher than my first smoke, but i think taking it off early was the reason there.  

All in all a success, but my next one will be better.

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