First (and second) Keto Smoke

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BoilerBBQ

Fire Starter
Original poster
Aug 19, 2018
42
56
Madison, WI
I've been on the Keto diet for a few weeks now and grilling food fits into the diet very well, but this weekend was my first chance to smoke some "diet" food. I had family coming to town, so I decided to do an overnight pork butt. My normal rub is a secret recipe from my former volunteer fire department, so I opted to not use it assuming it contained some sort of sugar. I used Bad Byron's Butt Rub since it is sugar free and seemed similar to what I normally use. I cut the apple juice out of my spritz and just coated the butt with apple cider vinegar prior to the rub.

Onto the WSM holding steady at about 233℉ at 8:30 with pecan and hickory chunks. Sorry for the smoky pic, I forgot to take a "before" pic.

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The temp dropped a little as the air cooled, so I opened a vent a touch more before bed. I had a high temp alarm (260℉) at 1:30, then ran low on fuel at 5:30 (my fault for not adding enough and not having meat ready to put on right away).

I wasn't planning on wrapping this time, but it had a terrible stall. Sat at 156℉ for over 4 hours. Gave in and wrapped it at 10:30 and made other lunch plans. Finally probed tender at 12:30 at 203℉

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Since I missed the lunch window, I wrapped it up and put it in a cooler with a jug of hot water and held until dinner time. Pulled apart easily and had great flavor. Even my dad, who doesn't care for pork (pickiest eater I know) said it was the best pulled pork he's ever had and ate several servings over the weekend.

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On Sunday, I smoked 2 spatchcock chickens. First was my usual SPOG + rosemary. I wanted to try something new on the other one, so I used the Butt Rub on it. Smoked one on each rack with pecan and cherry chunks. All vents were wide open. Temp stayed around 275℉ for awhile, but eventually climbed over 300℉ and finished at 340℉. Both birds had a beautiful red color. The skin was nice and crispy, but the thighs on the top bird got a little dry. The Butt Rub bird (lower rack) turned out to have way more flavor and either took on more smoke or the rub just enhanced it. The wife requested that all future chickens be smoked with Butt Rub. Sorry, no Q-view of this one, I had hungry guests waiting.

This was my first smoke using my temp probe notch. It made the smoke so much easier. I had 3 probe wires going in and was able to fully remove the lid and access both racks. I wish I had done that mod sooner.

Biggest win of the weekend was finding out that the "secret seasoning" doesn't contain sugar, and I was given the recipe!
 
Looks great. Sounds like you are getting some good Keto recipes going there.

Great Job.
 
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