First smoke including Qview

[fitzdawg79]

I finally got to try the smoker yesterday. All in all it was a success. My smoked a 4.5lb butt which had the plateau from hades, since it took it about 12 hours to get to 200 deg internal temp. I'm re-posting the story below from my thread yesterday since it took so long to post the qview:

Wife: This is really good. I mean really good.
Me: Thanks, it's pretty good but I think I can do better.
Wife: Well this may seriously be the best bbq I've ever eaten, so if you can do better than I can wait to taste that.

As for the vitals, I smoked with a mixture of hickory and apple chips which had been soaked in water overnight and got really good smoke from them. I used a really simple rub that I found on another site that had a really good flavor and a very slight kick to it. Now I can't wait to try again!

Here's the finished butt:


And here's the pork after pulling:

 

[scpatterson]

Looks great.....What do you think caused the 12 hour cook time??

 

[rickw]

Nice looking grub but 12 hours on a 4.5lb butt? Wow that's a long time.

 

[irishteabear]

It looks good. What temp did you smoke it at? Did you foil it at all?

 

[fitzdawg79]

Not sure what happened on the cook time...We had 10-15 mph sustained winds yesterday with gusts in the 20s, and the temp was in the high 50s for most of the day. Also, what are the chances the weight was mislabeled and maybe it was heavier than 4.5 lbs? I know the temps (both meat and smoker) were pretty much dead on since I tested both thermometers in boiling water and ice water, and I checked the butt with a third meat therm once it plateaued. It was a pretty frustrating up until I tasted the first bite.

 

[fitzdawg79]

I kept the smoker between 225 and 235 all day, then wrapped the butt in foil when it hit 160 degrees (it had been in the smoker for 9.5 hours at that point)

 

[beer-b-q]

Looks Great, Nice Qview...

 

[the dude abides]

I agree, that's a heck of a long time for a 4.5 pound butt. Anyhow, glad it was a tasty success.

Congrats on your wife liking your first smoke. You're a lucky man.

 

[scpatterson]

It would have had to been 12 pounds or something for 12 hours...It wold ahve been hard to mistaken 4.5 for 12 but I guess its possible...It sounds like a temp issue, maybe the cooker temp, maybe the wind was affecting the cooker temps... Looked good though

 

[beretta92_fs2003]

looks good. I did not get the post,was I late for dinner.

 

[fitzdawg79]

Don't worry, I have this Friday off and have been commanded by She Who Must Be Obeyed to give it another go!

 

[raceyb]

That must have been very frustrating to have to cook that for 12 hours. After foiling, I probably would have taken smoker temp up a little at that point since it was 9 hours into smoking and only at 160 degrees.

Good looking qview. Did you use a finishing sauce?

 

[fitzdawg79]

I didn't have any kind of finishing sauce prepared, since I wasn't planning to foil it. The foil was a desperation move to try to speed things up