So, the past couple weeks I have been seeing a lot of people doing these. Never tried, and couldn't resist the opportunity when I found a 7lb belly at Sams Club. $2.98 lb.
Started out by getting the MES warmed up, while also having unlit pellets in the tray to dry out while warming up. On this I used a mix of apple and pitmaster choice.
Started Friday afternoon:
Trimmed some of the fat and began cubing up.
Bagged up and rubbed. The one on the left is Jeff's rub. The bag on the right is Pit Boss Sweet Rib Rub.
Put them in the fridge until their sentence is up. Was to be Saturday or Sunday. Decided Sunday, so they sat and stewed for almost two days.
Pulled out and arranged on some recently acquired smoking racks. Oddly, those in Jeff's rub had no real moisture, but the ones on the right dripped a lot, so put on a tray until time for the smoker:
Into the MES, after getting it to about 270. Warmed up this much becasue it was cold out and I knew temp would drop. Here they are with that special little tray smoking great:
As I figured, the temp really dropped when I put these in the smoker, but way more than I thought. All the way down to about 150. Wow. Guess the open door, cold outside temp and the 7 pounds of meat really work against her. Took about an hour to regain the temperature. Never had this happen before. Perhaps an isolated instance.
Anyway, cooked them about 4 1/2 hours (1 hour in the getting hot again stage) around 230-240 most of the time.
Here they are pulled and ready to pan up:
In my excitement at the way they looked, I totally forgot I intentionally put Jeff's rub on the top shelf and the Pitt Boss on the bottom rack, so by the time I pulled and got upstairs, I forgot which was which:rolleyes:.
Oh well, still tossed both in the same glaze. Drizzled some generous amounts of honey on them, sprinkled and stirred with a handful or so brown sugar, then a big slathering of Sweet Baby Rays spicy BBQ. Covered with foil and back in the smoker for about 2 more hours at around 225. Another rookie oops, forgot pictures of these processes, but...final out of the smoker:
Still couldn't tell which was which. Big dummy. Anyway, here is my (first) plate for dinner, with some cheesy hashbrown casserole.:
These were almost as good as anticipated. Actually very good. I did learn, however, that I should have trimmed more fat. Some of them were pretty heavy in fat (duh, it is bacon, for crying out loud!!!). I assumed they would render a lot more than they did. Next time I will trim more. Oh, and cook less. 4 of us to eat them, and assumed have some left for another meal or so. These were so damn rich that we had a ton left. So next time will do about 1/2 and freeze the other for a future play date.
Thanks for visiting, and thanks for the inspiration. Glad I did them and will be doing again.
Started out by getting the MES warmed up, while also having unlit pellets in the tray to dry out while warming up. On this I used a mix of apple and pitmaster choice.
Started Friday afternoon:
Trimmed some of the fat and began cubing up.
Bagged up and rubbed. The one on the left is Jeff's rub. The bag on the right is Pit Boss Sweet Rib Rub.
Put them in the fridge until their sentence is up. Was to be Saturday or Sunday. Decided Sunday, so they sat and stewed for almost two days.
Pulled out and arranged on some recently acquired smoking racks. Oddly, those in Jeff's rub had no real moisture, but the ones on the right dripped a lot, so put on a tray until time for the smoker:
Into the MES, after getting it to about 270. Warmed up this much becasue it was cold out and I knew temp would drop. Here they are with that special little tray smoking great:
As I figured, the temp really dropped when I put these in the smoker, but way more than I thought. All the way down to about 150. Wow. Guess the open door, cold outside temp and the 7 pounds of meat really work against her. Took about an hour to regain the temperature. Never had this happen before. Perhaps an isolated instance.
Anyway, cooked them about 4 1/2 hours (1 hour in the getting hot again stage) around 230-240 most of the time.
Here they are pulled and ready to pan up:
In my excitement at the way they looked, I totally forgot I intentionally put Jeff's rub on the top shelf and the Pitt Boss on the bottom rack, so by the time I pulled and got upstairs, I forgot which was which:rolleyes:.
Oh well, still tossed both in the same glaze. Drizzled some generous amounts of honey on them, sprinkled and stirred with a handful or so brown sugar, then a big slathering of Sweet Baby Rays spicy BBQ. Covered with foil and back in the smoker for about 2 more hours at around 225. Another rookie oops, forgot pictures of these processes, but...final out of the smoker:
Still couldn't tell which was which. Big dummy. Anyway, here is my (first) plate for dinner, with some cheesy hashbrown casserole.:
These were almost as good as anticipated. Actually very good. I did learn, however, that I should have trimmed more fat. Some of them were pretty heavy in fat (duh, it is bacon, for crying out loud!!!). I assumed they would render a lot more than they did. Next time I will trim more. Oh, and cook less. 4 of us to eat them, and assumed have some left for another meal or so. These were so damn rich that we had a ton left. So next time will do about 1/2 and freeze the other for a future play date.
Thanks for visiting, and thanks for the inspiration. Glad I did them and will be doing again.
