My first Butt.... (Updated: The Butt is Done - Qview)

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zx24

Fire Starter
Original poster
Aug 5, 2014
36
10
Mandeville, LA
I finised seasoning my MES30 earlier this morning. I am planning to smoke my first butt. I picked up a 9.3lbs butt from the store. It was the smallest they had, so I am in for a long smoke. I will probably cook it at 230-240 degrees. I have the rub on and wrapped while it is sitting in the fridge. I plan to use construct my maibox mod tonight and throw the butt in the smoker. What pellet flavor do you recommend? Hickory, Maple, Cherry, Oak?

Here are the first few pics...


 
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I like oak myself, but I'm a Texas boy.. Grew up in the Texas Hill Country. That's all we had oak trees and more oak trees.. lol

I smoked a butt a few days ago and used oak & it came out great..

Phil
 
I went with oak since that was the only one I had out of the two options. The butt is in the smoker. I was having a difficult time keeping my pellets lit. I microwaved them before adding them to the holder, but they didn't stay lit. I had to relight them and ended up putting a fan pointing at my mailbox to keep it going. I hope that is good enough to last me through the night.
 
Update!!! I put the butt on last night around midnight at 230 degrees. Had my oak AMNPS smoking when I went to bed. When I woke up at 9am this morning there was no smoke. I was a little concerned and opened up my mailbox to see about half of it burned. So I am guessing it got about 5 hours of smoke. Since I had a 9lbs pork butt, I was expecting a 16-20 hour smoke. After 9 hours it was at 170 degrees. It seems like it is cooking much faster than expected. I know butt can be unpredictable, but does this seem like it is cooking too fast?


Here is the AMNPS when I woke up this morning. I've had a difficult time getting it to relight. I am wondering if it has to do with the humidity here in Louisiana.

 
Yes, The top vent is wide open. No moisture on the mailbox. It is actually smoking well now. Not sure what happened last night. I followed the directions and let it burn for 10min before placing it in the mailbox. It went out before the 10min was over. I lit it again and kept blowing on it to keep it going for 10 min, that seemed to work.
 
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Looks like I am officially in the "stall" it has been hanging at 181 degrees for an hour now.
 
I had a little setback with my meat thermometer. I have two digital thermometers, one has worked well for me and the other is a little cheaper and used as a backup. I hooked up my good thermometer (wireless) and it wouldn't sync. So I took out my back up thermometer and connected the probe from my good thermometer to back thermometer display and it worked. This morning I decided to put the other probe in the meat as well and it is giving me a different reading. Based on the readings below, should I just trust the old probe and thermometer? I am smoking a pork butt to 205. Should digital probes work well together if they are a different brand?

New probe + Old display = 183 degrees

Old probe + Old Display = 159 degrees

Analog meat thermometer = ~153 degrees

Right now I switched to the old probe and old display and I am at 167 degrees. I am hoping that is correct.
 
Here is the latest picture of the butt.. 19 hours into the smoke and things seem to be progressing well. The pork is at 183. The bone looks like it is popping out a little and the juices are really starting to drip. I was able to get the other thermometer working again and both thermometers were reading within 2 degrees of each other. I guess using a different probe does impact the performance.

 
The Butt finished last night at 11:30pm for a 23.5 hour smoke. Next time I will plan a little better and start it earlier. I pulled it from the smoker at 203 degrees and wrapped in foil and let it sit in a cooler for 30min before pulling. It pulled pretty easily. I hadn't eaten all night so I couldn't wait to try it. It was pretty good. I think next time I will try a finishing sauce. This entire process was very rushed and not planned out as well as I would have liked. I seasoned the smoker Saturday morning, bought a cart and materials to make the mailbox mod Saturday morning and put it together that night. Once everything was ready I didn't get to put the butt on the smoker until midnight. Here are some pictures of the finished product. 



 
Looks like you did just fine.. 
drool.gif
 
 
Why was it just pretty good? Was there something you didn't like about it?
Yes good question.  I also see you didn't use a finishing sauce.....I always do.  Just takes that Butt to a new level.   Also what was your rub?  Maybe not too much to your liking? 

We want to get you to the point where you pull it off and tell us it's the best you have ever tasted
 
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