Ran my 1050 overnight for the first time this past weekend to smoke a pork shoulder for a family gathering for this coming weekend. I'll be doing ribs day of, so thought it best to get the PP out of the way ahead of time since it reheats so well. This also served as a great chance to try my new Masterbuilt 1050 on a long overnight smoke. I am looking forward to doing a Brisket overnight soon, but wanted to try with a less spendy cut of meat first in case it all went wrong overnight.
The good news is it didn't all go wrong, but it went -- not the smoothest.
Got my 9.5lb pork shoulder on the smoke at 8pm Saturday night. Stayed up until midnight and topped off the charcoal hopper. Ran the smoker at 225, so with a full hopper I should have about 8 hours of fuel at that temp. Went to bed and set an alarm for 7, and the smoker is next to my bedroom so I would hear the low temp alarm the MBGs give if the PID controller can't keep the temp you set. All good - so I thought! Woke up at 6:30 before my alarm and I am glad I did. The built-in probe was registering about 220 - lower than set but not low enough to trigger an alarm. The probe on the middle rack where I was cooking was reading only about 150, and my pork shoulder was only at 148 degrees after 10 hours (in hindsight I think this is where that shoulder stalled, more below).
I opened the firebox and put my hand below the main charcoal area and it was ice cold - yet there was still combustion and plenty of fuel in the hopper. I think what happened is that ash accumulated where the combustion should take place and blocked air flow and prevented the "gravity" part of the charcoal from working. The combustion had climbed a bit higher up in the hopper, but wasn't getting the correct air flow into the cook chamber. I gave the charcoal grate a really good shake and added a bit more fuel, which cleared all the ash and got the lit charcoal down to where it wants to be. The smoker climbed back to temp quickly once things were sorted. So the main lesson here for any MBG owners is to make sure you are clearing any accumulated ash on longer smokes. If I had done this before I went to bed I think it would have been fine.
Now at this point for this smoke I had to call an audible. It was about 7am by the time I got everything sorted and we had plans at noon. I cranked the smoker from 225 to 300 and by about 10am the IT of the shoulder had climbed to 180. I never hit a stall after the smoker temp came back up, which is why I think this shoulder was in the stall around 148 (lower than usual, but hey). By this point the bark was set, so I crutched it and threw it in the oven at 325. Definitely not my normal method but I know a lot of people do PP this way and it turns out fine. I hit 203 IT around 11:45am and pulled from the oven. Let rest 45 min and my wife and I pulled it in a hurry, seasoned it, and got it in the freezer for next weekend.
We were an hour late to our plans, but our friends were understanding (they have enjoyed my ribs before, and will enjoy more food again!).
Despite everything it turned out to be some of the best PP I've made. I ran the MBG with a hickory split in the charcoal hopper and got the best looking smoke ring I think I've ever had on a pork shoulder. I didn't get too many pics because we were in a hurry but I did manage to snap one of the finished tray before we put it in freezer bags.
The good news is it didn't all go wrong, but it went -- not the smoothest.
Got my 9.5lb pork shoulder on the smoke at 8pm Saturday night. Stayed up until midnight and topped off the charcoal hopper. Ran the smoker at 225, so with a full hopper I should have about 8 hours of fuel at that temp. Went to bed and set an alarm for 7, and the smoker is next to my bedroom so I would hear the low temp alarm the MBGs give if the PID controller can't keep the temp you set. All good - so I thought! Woke up at 6:30 before my alarm and I am glad I did. The built-in probe was registering about 220 - lower than set but not low enough to trigger an alarm. The probe on the middle rack where I was cooking was reading only about 150, and my pork shoulder was only at 148 degrees after 10 hours (in hindsight I think this is where that shoulder stalled, more below).
I opened the firebox and put my hand below the main charcoal area and it was ice cold - yet there was still combustion and plenty of fuel in the hopper. I think what happened is that ash accumulated where the combustion should take place and blocked air flow and prevented the "gravity" part of the charcoal from working. The combustion had climbed a bit higher up in the hopper, but wasn't getting the correct air flow into the cook chamber. I gave the charcoal grate a really good shake and added a bit more fuel, which cleared all the ash and got the lit charcoal down to where it wants to be. The smoker climbed back to temp quickly once things were sorted. So the main lesson here for any MBG owners is to make sure you are clearing any accumulated ash on longer smokes. If I had done this before I went to bed I think it would have been fine.
Now at this point for this smoke I had to call an audible. It was about 7am by the time I got everything sorted and we had plans at noon. I cranked the smoker from 225 to 300 and by about 10am the IT of the shoulder had climbed to 180. I never hit a stall after the smoker temp came back up, which is why I think this shoulder was in the stall around 148 (lower than usual, but hey). By this point the bark was set, so I crutched it and threw it in the oven at 325. Definitely not my normal method but I know a lot of people do PP this way and it turns out fine. I hit 203 IT around 11:45am and pulled from the oven. Let rest 45 min and my wife and I pulled it in a hurry, seasoned it, and got it in the freezer for next weekend.
We were an hour late to our plans, but our friends were understanding (they have enjoyed my ribs before, and will enjoy more food again!).
Despite everything it turned out to be some of the best PP I've made. I ran the MBG with a hickory split in the charcoal hopper and got the best looking smoke ring I think I've ever had on a pork shoulder. I didn't get too many pics because we were in a hurry but I did manage to snap one of the finished tray before we put it in freezer bags.
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