My Saturday 2nd butt - w/qview

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bobbyh

Fire Starter
Original poster
Aug 17, 2008
61
10
Wasn't going to do this until tomorrow, but as usual, plans get changed by females. Please be advised that I am still a total newb at this so I'm just reporting my progress. Feel free to flog me where necessary.

So I guess I'll do a play by play...because I have nothing better to do and plenty of cold beer.

Started at 3:50.
Got the grill fired up and preheating and got the meat out of the fridge to start working on it. Got my rub mixed up and ready to go. (possible tip: I dumped all my rub ingredients into a small tupperware type container, added the lid, and shook the crap out of it to mix. As opposed to stirring, etc.)

Got my layout and ready to go. (gratuitous Dawg shot included on purpose)
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And please excuse the Bud Light. I drank all the good stuff last night. :(


Most everything I will do here will be based on what I've learned on these forums. I will link where possible.

I've opened the meat and patted dry. It's a 5.56 lb bone in boston butt. First step is to liberally coat with plain yellow mustard, which I've done here. For those that may not know yet, the mustard does not impart any flavor to the meat. It's merely a medium to help adhere the rub to the meat while it cooks. But it does assist in creating a nice bark and the mustard flavor is cooked out over time, or so I'm told.

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Now for the rub. A basic rub that I stole from HuskerSmokeMan on this site. Your basic paprika, brown sugar, salt, pepper, garlic, onion, chili powder mix. I added a dash of celery seed because I saw it in another mix and I like the smell of it. Side note: I'm still skeptical about the paprika. I did go out and buy the good stuff and the flavor is certainly more intense and identifiable, which made it easier to determine it was what I didn't like about some other rubs I've had before. Regardless, I bought it, so I'm going to use it this time to see how it ends up on the back end. If I still don't like it, it will be removed from future rubs.

Anyway, rub is applied liberally all over the meat.
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Ok, grill is going so I get my wood on to get smoking. Before you poo poo my grill, it's all I've got at the moment and I've had pretty good success with it. The burners are left to right, so I'm able to keep the meat away from the heat source pretty well, but I do rotate it to keep the cooking even as it still has some direct effect on the way the meat cooks on each side. No biggie. I will get a smoker one of these days I suppose. But I'm new to this so I'm working with what I have for now.

I am using hickory chunks and apple chips today. I did not soak them because I read on here that it's basically a waste of time. I put two good size chunks of hickory in one pouch and a good handfull of apple in the other. I close them up fairly tight so as to limit the airflow and thus the available oxygen so they don't just burst into flame. Believe it or not, this method works pretty good if you pay attention.

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And yes, it's raining here. Thanks Fay. Wood is put on at 4:15. Gonna let it get hot before the meat goes on.

Here is the meat on the grill. You can see the apple wood on the bottom is just starting to smoke a bit.

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Ok, we are now set up and ready to go. Because it's raining, I used a small tupper ware type container to put the thermometer in to keep it dry. Pretty slick if I do say so. And I can read it from inside the house through the kitchen window
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Now for the long slow burn... This is 4:30. 40 mins after coming out of the fridge. Grill is running at about 240 so we aren't doing too bad on temp.

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up next...making the spray
 
According to various posts on this site, I'm going to us the Cpt Morgan's spiced rum and apple juice mix.

Going three to one. So, 1.5 cups apple juice, .5 cup rum to fit into my 2 cup Chinese spray bottle.

That booze is expensive btw....

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4:37 - Apple was smoking a bit much so I closed the pouch a good bit.

4:45 - checked and both woods are barely smoldering now, can't see the smoke hardly outside the grill. I think I'm in the zone. Meat is 65 degrees.
 
5:30 - Rotated the meat 180 degrees. Temp is at 76 now. Hickory is still smoking good, nice and low but the apple has petered out. Going to add another small pouch of apple.
 
Looks good my friend, I might just be up with you I put my butts on at 6 am and the internal temp is at 145.
 
LOL it was looking good but the temp has been seating at the temp for some time now. The smoker is around 250 to 260.
 
Looking good man. I see that dawg is peeking out of that apple juice bottle. He will learn which bottle to get in.
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6:25 Ok, checking it and temp is now 102. Spun it around again and gave it a good spray with the bottle. Still smoking good so no changes with the wood for now. Grill is running at about 250.

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I just got one out of the smoker and put it in the oven at 250. Waiting for the 200 mark. I think the other one will take some more time it is a bigger one.
 
6:55 - another spray and check. 113 degrees. Smoke still looking ok. Light.

That's one thing I didn't know before coming here. You want light smoke, not billowing clouds of it. TBS
 
7:25 Crap! Ran outta gas. Luckily I caught it pretty quick. Got the tank changed out and fired it back up. Meat is at 121. Rotated and sprayed. I was going to take another pic but it looks pretty much the same, thanks to the paprika. Starting to rain again.
 
Looks good hopefully you don't get the rain Tallahassee has been dealing with. Will be looking forward to more Qview

Oh yea watch out the Gator doesn't take a big bite outta that Dog
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7:55 another turn another spray. It's at 125 now. Put in another chunk of hickory.

Trust me, I know all about those Gaters. I'm hoping to make my first trip down to Jax this year. Obviously our hopes are very high, but we aren't stupid either. It's a very very tough road.
 
Rain has stopped for now. Luckily, most of the bad stuff has been south of us a bit.
 
8:25 - Must be at a plateau, meat is only at 126. Another turn, another spray, and another chunk of hickory, and hell, a little apple too.
 
8:55 - Ugh, raining again.

Temp is up to 131. Another spray. Still have good light smoke going. Watching a VERY cool show about the App State football team and their win over Michigan last year. Very cool behind the scenes type thing. Beer time.
 
9:25 - rain stopped again. Rotated and sprayed again. Temp is up to 137 now. Getting there. Won't be long till foiling time.
 
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