So, I found this site a bit late in the game -- an hour or two into my first pork butt. Seemed to work pretty well, though; I have high hopes that the next one will be better.
I'm smoking in a flower pot, which I understand is not too uncommon around here. It's electric, which conveniently gets around some prohibitions against "open flames" on my apartment balcony. As long as the wood doesn't flare up, I suppose.
So far, I've been impressed with the smoker -- not quite enough exhaust, which was a problem when I first tried smoking a chicken ("It tastes like I'm eating smoke", my wife said), but it's easy to regulate temperature and it seems to get plenty hot -- I smoked a 5lb butt in 40-degree weather yesterday, and the temperature was set near "medium".
Well, I think it was plenty hot. The catch was, the roast took a long time -- like 12 hours. It was a 5lb butt, so that seems pretty silly. I monitored temperatures with a wireless thermometer in the pork and a Taylor digital probe to measure grill temperature. But after a couple of hours the wireless unit broke, so I used the Taylor probe in the pork and the standard analog grill thermometer to monitor grill temps.
Either way, the grill was holding steady around 215 degrees, which was my target. I wrapped up the butt after 4 or 5 hours; after 7 hours I went ahead and put it in the oven because I was tired of going out into the cold to check on it.
I kept it in the oven at 235 (no oven thermometer, so perhaps temps were off there) for the next 5 hours. I moved the thermometer in the pork a couple times to make sure I was getting an accurate reading and not hitting a bone, but it didn't hit 195 degrees until 10 PM.
(taken upside-down, I think -- the fat side is up. The picture makes it look a little darker than it was)
Let me tell you, that's torture -- my wife had gotten home hours earlier and the first thing she said was, "Our house smells like a barbecue joint!". That's a good thing, coming from her. We were both starving, and smelling barbecue that was just so close -- but not quite there yet. We ate out for dinner because we felt that the pork was toying with us.
The good news was, at lunch today it was good. A little bland, actually, and bordering on mushy, but good. Last night when I pulled it I added SoFlaQuers's finishing sauce, and I'll probably add a little more next time I reheat. The rub was mainly peppers and salt. Could have used a kick, I think. My wife took some for her lunch at work, and I haven't heard her opinion yet.
So, that's a long-winded way of saying hello, and here's to many years of good barbecue ahead. And hopefully some that is done by dinnertime.
I'm smoking in a flower pot, which I understand is not too uncommon around here. It's electric, which conveniently gets around some prohibitions against "open flames" on my apartment balcony. As long as the wood doesn't flare up, I suppose.
So far, I've been impressed with the smoker -- not quite enough exhaust, which was a problem when I first tried smoking a chicken ("It tastes like I'm eating smoke", my wife said), but it's easy to regulate temperature and it seems to get plenty hot -- I smoked a 5lb butt in 40-degree weather yesterday, and the temperature was set near "medium".
Well, I think it was plenty hot. The catch was, the roast took a long time -- like 12 hours. It was a 5lb butt, so that seems pretty silly. I monitored temperatures with a wireless thermometer in the pork and a Taylor digital probe to measure grill temperature. But after a couple of hours the wireless unit broke, so I used the Taylor probe in the pork and the standard analog grill thermometer to monitor grill temps.
Either way, the grill was holding steady around 215 degrees, which was my target. I wrapped up the butt after 4 or 5 hours; after 7 hours I went ahead and put it in the oven because I was tired of going out into the cold to check on it.
I kept it in the oven at 235 (no oven thermometer, so perhaps temps were off there) for the next 5 hours. I moved the thermometer in the pork a couple times to make sure I was getting an accurate reading and not hitting a bone, but it didn't hit 195 degrees until 10 PM.
(taken upside-down, I think -- the fat side is up. The picture makes it look a little darker than it was)
Let me tell you, that's torture -- my wife had gotten home hours earlier and the first thing she said was, "Our house smells like a barbecue joint!". That's a good thing, coming from her. We were both starving, and smelling barbecue that was just so close -- but not quite there yet. We ate out for dinner because we felt that the pork was toying with us.
The good news was, at lunch today it was good. A little bland, actually, and bordering on mushy, but good. Last night when I pulled it I added SoFlaQuers's finishing sauce, and I'll probably add a little more next time I reheat. The rub was mainly peppers and salt. Could have used a kick, I think. My wife took some for her lunch at work, and I haven't heard her opinion yet.
So, that's a long-winded way of saying hello, and here's to many years of good barbecue ahead. And hopefully some that is done by dinnertime.
