My first time smoking.........SUCCESS!

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dieseladdiction

Fire Starter
Original poster
Jul 2, 2015
49
13
attempted my first smoke today.  Smoked a 8.5 lb bone in pork butt.   Last night I trimmed it and salted it. Unfortunately, it was about 9pm by the time I got it salted and put in the fridge.  Set the alarm for 3 am and got it out and put rub on it.  Stuck it in the used cookshack sm 025 that I just picked up. Used a hunk of cherry and a hunk of hickory set at 225 F.  It was 3:30 by now. After I started to put rub on I realized I just sprinkled rub on without any oil, mustard or anything else.  Beginners forgetfulness and it was 3 am.  lol 

Went to work and when I got home about 1:30 pm it was reading about 170 something.  It had been 10 hours and knew I had to run to the hospital today to visit gf so I cranked up temp to 250 for a while(probably about an hour) and it was still barely moving so I went up to 270.  somewhere around 3 pm it was reading 195,  then 197, then I went back into the house and came out to temp HI reading.  I believe probe on the unit only reads to 200 F.  I wanted to go to 203 as suggested on this site but close enough for me being my first time.  pulled it out, double foiled and wrapped in towel and into a Styrofoam cooler since I knew I was leaving right away for a while.  Went to hospital and when I got back 4 hours later it still had plenty of heat in it.  Awesome!

 So it took 12 hours but I started cranking up heat at 10 hour mark.   Had good bark but not much flavor.  Will have to work on the rub and see what I can do. One thing is I don't think I got enough salt on it (besides not having a very long brine time).  I didn't have time to try making a sauce to try.  I will be experimenting.

  I am happy with the results for a first smoke and the constraints on doing it.  Wanted to do it today because it is supposed to rain every day rest of the week. Now I know I can do it and turn out a good result. It can only get better with more practice. Smoke on.





don't know why these loaded sideways and don't know how to fix it...Sorry
 
Congrats on your first smoke. As for applying oil or mustard before the rub, i find it unneccesary. Rub sticks on it just fine without it. As for the flavor, just experiment with different rubs to see what you like best. Even try an injection to get more flavor inside as well.
And the brine is not really neccesary for pork butt since it has enough fat content to stay moist, but do what you think works. Plus i personally dont think it adds that much flavor if any, but that may just be because of what i use for it. Brines are mainly to add moisture to meat so it doesnt dry out as much/easily.
But do what you think works best for you. What works for one person may not work for another. Youll start to develope your own method of doing things
 
I think you might find that after the leftovers spend the night in the 'fridge, the flavor will have increased. Also, since it's a pretty fatty cut of meat, a vinegar based finishing sauce goes a long way toward cutting through the fat and allowing the other flavors to come through. I usually just sorta toss it together at the last minute. I like 6 ounces each cider vinegar and ginger ale, a teaspoon of red pepper flakes, half teaspoon each salt and black pepper and a squirt (maybe a teaspoon) of ketchup. Not really trying to add a ton of flavor, just opening up the flavors that are already there.
Another thing that doesn't get mentioned a lot is that after its pulled, the simple addition of salt amps up the flavor quite a bit. There is a lot of mass and not a lot of surface area, so even heavy rubs don't usually provide enough seasoning for all the meat.
 
Congratulations....might want to buy "Jeffs Rub". Helluva good rub...and accepts tweaking very well. Just did a Tri Tip with a slightly modified version of it, meat was a beautiful mahogany color. Same with the ribs we did the day before.
 
THANKS everyone.  I ran out of time to make a sauce to try. I was gonna make a bbq sauce to use lightly and a vinegar type to use.  next time I will get to it.  I will have to search some more recipes to look at.  The "leftovers" had a little more flavor and smokiness it seemed. I wished the rub I made gave it a little more flavor, 'butt' ha ha it still tasted good just need more time to try other ones and decide whats best for me.

 I wanted to do some ribs today but life happens,so this evening I smoked hamburgers and corn on the cob.  That was another YUM in my books.  Will definitely be doing that again for quick meal when I don't have time to smoke for a whole day. nothing fancy this time just plain hamburger with seasoning salt and corn with just a touch of butter.  Sorry, no pics of that, was in a hurry.
 
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