Smoking my first butt in the morning and had a few questions. First, I just got some hickory chunks and fired up the smoker to play with the smoke. I only put three pieces in and let them sit for a while. I never got any smoke at all coming from the smoker. Picking the wood up, it was charring and smoking a little.
The chunk smoke wood should begin to smoke slowly for a longer smoke, but if you're not getting much smoke within about 15 minutes, you may need more heat to the smoke tray. If you get a rolling white smoke that doesn't seem to stop, and the smoke wood is burning up, you need less heat and/or less air to the smoke wood. With a gasser, you should have charred smoke wood after an hour or so, with little ash on/near the wood. If it's burning, it won't last and won't provide proper smoke.
How many pieces do I need in my pan? Load it down or just three or four? Also, could I sprinkle a few chips in with it to get just a little more smoke?
The more you use, the heavier the smoke, but it really doesn't take much. One chunk about 1/2 a fist size should do for about 4-5 hours if heat and air getting to the wood is the combination. The smaller the wood, the faster it will smolder and the shorter time it will smoke, but if you make a small pile of chips and have a little less heat, they should start smoldering on the bottom of the pile and that should slowly begin to work it's way up to the top of the pile, in succession.
Second, I have a Brinkman vertical gas smoker. I have heard that the factory thermometers are unreliable so I put my meat probe on the rack and let it sit a while tonight. At the lowest setting, it was reading 267. Is that too hot?
Something's not right there at all. I have no experience with your particular smoker, but my stock GOSM gasser would run down to about 100* over ambient temps, and my Smoke Vault has much more fine adjustment and can run to within 50* or less of ambient. If you had the burner control valve on low, I'm thinking that the pot vent was closed too much, or if it has lower intakes, they may be closed to much. Another thought is the water pan...if it's dry, the smoker can run very hot compared to when full of water. Even after the smoker is running at a stable temperature for an hour with water in the pan, if you were to remove the pan and dump out the water, replace the pan, close the door and leave everything else alone, the smoke chamber temp will spike very soon afterwards.
And yes, for most of the items we smoke, with the exception of some folks smoking poultry at higher temps, 267* is way too hot. For larger cuts of beef or pork, 225-240* is a good range.
Is using the meat probe a reliable source for the smoker's temp?
Yes, digital themometers are the most accurate. Analog thermometers are very susceptable to accuracy problems from vibrations, shock (dropping), etc. and need to be calibrated ocassionally, or at least verified if they can't be calibrated. that includes analog meat thermometers, btw, which due tio being handled alot, can tend to be inaccurate for the same reasons.
What could I do to cool it off?
As I discussed above, start with the vent positions, have water in the pan, be sure the burner valve is set on the lowest position. If the control is one of the weird kind with a detent to hold it in the high position while igniting, be sure the detent will release so you can rotate the knob away from the high setting.
The door was reading about 180 or so.
The door therms are notoriously inaccurate, and some (not all can be calibrated to the reading of a known accurate temp reading device such as the digital probes. If the door thermometer has a stem/probe which protrudes into the smoke chamber, they typically can be calibrated. You'll see a hex "nut" on the stem next to the back of the temp gauge body. This is where the calibration adjustment is made by rotating the stem with a wrench to read the same as another thermometer used for verifying the temp gauge in question after smoke chamber temps have stabilized for 5-10 minutes.
I know this is a lot of questions, but I really do not want to mess up two butts tomorrow. Thanks!
Are these bone-in or boneless butts? Just had a thought about if they were boneless, needing to get over 140* in 4 hours, but bone-in is not an issue. Also, don't stab the butts with a temp probe until several hours into the smoke...and don't inject them with marinades...both of these make for more comlicated smokes when cooking low and slow, and are food safety issue hurdles to overcome, so you'll want to keep things simple on meat prep. This will make it easier to be sure your meat is safe for consumption. Not to spook you or anything, just a heads up so you can have a more enjoyable first smoke with less things to worry about.
We'll get you through it. And pork butts are actually one of the easiest things I've ever smoked, so don't worry about that. If all else fails and you actually have pretty high smoke chamber temps, you could run the smoke at higher temps. It won't give quite the same resulting finished product as you would get with low & slow cooking in the 225* range, but it won't ruin the meat in any way. The smoke reaction with the meat at higher chamber temps doesn't last as long, so less smoke flavor (evidenced by a reduced amount of smoke ring) would result. The meat may not get quite as tender either, but wouldn't be ruined by any means.
Don't get yourself over concerned about the temps being too high at this point...if they were too low, I would worry as that can be a food safety issue depending on the meat. But if you can't get them jacked down, you can still smoke the butt. We can discuss the food safety issues another time...I don't want to overload your fresh smokin' brain too badly! LOL!!!!
