Completed my First Smoke w/ pics

[cyclonefan]

Hello, I completed my first smoke yesterday and am posing some pictures of the process.

Day before

-Inject with apple juice, sugar, salt mixture

-Rub w/ sugars, paprika, salt, spices

-Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate

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• cyclonefan
• Mar 22, 2013

Early Morning (4:30 am)

-Started the smoker and added wood chunks

-hooked up wireless thermometer/meat probe

-put the meat in

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• cyclonefan
• Mar 22, 2013

Waited and watched temperatures

-After watching meat temp, was worried in the morning that it would be done way too early and then in the afternoon was worried that it would never be done.

-Sprayed with apple juice every now and then

-Wrapped with foil at 165 degrees

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• cyclonefan
• Mar 22, 2013

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• cyclonefan
• Mar 22, 2013

Finished (around 7:30 pm)

-After wrapping, cooked to a 200 degree temperature

-double wrapped in foil an let rest for an hour

-added some finishing sauce

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• cyclonefan
• Mar 22, 2013

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• cyclonefan
• Mar 22, 2013

Overall, it was pretty damn good. I will probably change or leave out the injection next time and be a little more careful about adding wood chunks (less). There were a couple of time when they caught on fire. The flavor of the meat was good, but had a hint of a salty flavor that I'm not sure I cared for (injection?).

Next up, chicken or a brisket? What do you think? I looked at the "fatty" section and those look interesting as well. I told my wife about the "fatty" and she said it sounds disgusting

. I might have to rename those when I try to something more appealing when I get around to doing one.

 

[kathrynn]

Looks really yummy to me! 

I think you did just fine!

Kat

 

[pwillie]

Sometimes when I inject a PP I just use apple juice alone.  You might have been heavy on the salt.  Looks good and I'll bet it is gone by now.

 

[hambone1950]

Hey cyclone , 

pork looks good. Wow , that was a long cook for a small pork butt , huh?  Sometimes it just goes that way. I usually stay away from much salt when I do pulled pork  ...live and learn , I guess.

chicken or brisket next? I'll tell you right now the supermarket should be loaded with leftover corned beef brisket selling cheap. You can make your own pastrami or give that meat a good soak to get out some salt and end up with some nice smoked corned beef. That is good eating.

chicken is good too . Man , you can't go wrong!

i love the fatty discussion. My wife tells me the same thing . She's like "seriously , do we not get enough fat in our diet? " no use trying to defend the fatty.

i will just make one some night and tell her it's a stuffed burger or a BBQ calzone....yeah , that's the ticket!

 

[turnandburn]

man this is making me hungry, and i still got the better part of an hour n a half til lunch!!..THANKS!! haha

 

[chef willie]

Great first smoke...PP looks real good and you seem to be in control of your situation...well done

 

[smokinclt]

Looks like a darn good batch of PP to me. 

 

[cyclonefan]

Hey cyclone , 

pork looks good. Wow , that was a long cook for a small pork butt , huh?  Sometimes it just goes that way. I usually stay away from much salt when I do pulled pork  ...live and learn , I guess.

chicken or brisket next? I'll tell you right now the supermarket should be loaded with leftover corned beef brisket selling cheap. You can make your own pastrami or give that meat a good soak to get out some salt and end up with some nice smoked corned beef. That is good eating.

chicken is good too . Man , you can't go wrong!

i love the fatty discussion. My wife tells me the same thing . She's like "seriously , do we not get enough fat in our diet? " no use trying to defend the fatty.

i will just make one some night and tell her it's a stuffed burger or a BBQ calzone....yeah , that's the ticket!

Thanks for the advice on the corned beef. I'm going to head to the grocery store later today to pick one up.

 

[humdinger]

Not bad cyclone

. Looks good, and you did a lot of really good prep and care for your first smoke (injecting, foiling, resting, etc..). The long time to cook may have been b/c you were spritzing. That will cool the meat and slow down the cooking.

Only suggestion I have is related to food safety. I recently learned that if any harmful bacteria happens to contaminate the meat during slaughtering or processing, it will most likely exist on the outside of whole muscle meat and not on the inside. Therefore if you insert the thermometer probe into the raw meat in the beginning, you run the risk of pushing bacteria into the meat. With the low-and-slow cooking methods we smokers use, that could be potentially harmful to the meat consumers in the end.

That said, many of us here on SMF have started to adopt the practice of delaying when we insert the thermometer probe into the meat. For pork shoulder, I usually wait a good three hours. This gives the outside of the meat time to cook and kill off any harmful bacteria that could potentially be "pushed" into the meat when the probe is inserted.

This is just my humble suggestion. For the most part there is usually nothing to worry about when insertng the probe into raw meat. (Heck I did it for over two years before someone clued me in to waiting a bit.) But with a 2-year old daughter at home, I was happy to take that one extra step for her protection, and I'm just hoping I can pass a good tip on to you. Again nice job on the PP.

 

[seenred]

Looks good to me, Cyclone! 

  A successful first smoke. 

 

[pgsmoker64]

Great looking pork!!!!

Nice job on that first smoke!  Pulled Pork just says BBQ!!!!

Give that chicken a try!  Nothing like a smoked yard bird!

Good luck

Bill