Guys, I might be the worst BBQer out there. I’ve been lurking here and other forums for years, this was enough I thought I should post and find out. Tell me I’m not alone. Or maybe I am. This’ll be long.
Thought I might smoke up a couple of butts tonight, earlier today. The idea entered my head. They’re on sale at Publix, sort of, terrible sale, $2.50 / lb, but still, not awful. I’ll do an overnight and have some good meat for the week, schools starting and it’ll be nice to not have to cook. I buy two butts, looking for 8#ers, but all they have are 6.5. That’ll do, I spend too much at the grocery store and I’ve got two butts.
Spend the afternoon googling times — is it 1.5 hrs/lb? 2hrs? The internet disagrees, depends a lot on temp. These are not my first ones. I’ve smoked maybe 30-40 butts, not a ton, but enough to know what I’m doing. Ha.
Well, they want to go to the beach in the morning (I’m in FL). 8am. Ok, I’ll get em on at 9 tonight and be good. Well, its storming, and maybe its not a great night for this, ok, I’ll freeze em, and do em next weekend. Flash forward 3 hours (and a few beers), its 9, the rain has stopped, its dark, but just, I can still get these guys on. Let’s do it.
WSM’s a little dirty. I guess I didn’t foil the water pan the last time. I spray it out — in the dark — get most of the crud out, that’ll do well enough I guess. Don’t want to foil it with some crud still there, so, we go with this.
And that’s when I think — is this what Q is? Spraying out the water pan in the dark, at night, just to have some decent food?
Light the coals, we’ll use the minion method, even though I can’t really remember exactly how to do that, just light a few coals. Can’t find the charcoal starter, that’s ok, I’ll just light up the left side of the coals with some fluid. Perfect, that ought to be close enough. Close it up. Somehow, its now 10 pm.
Fill up the water pan with the hose — man, there’s still a lot of crud floating around in there, it’ll be fine — and get the grate on so I can scrape it from whatever I cooked a few weeks ago.
Get the butts going. Hmm, the mustard’s expired, but not too expired? Ask the wife, she doesn’t care about dates as I do, and get her reassurance that I’m being an idiot, its mustard, its fine. Use it.
I’ve got 7 different rubs in the cabinet. Ok, we’ll do the Holy Gospel on the little one, and this Hogs BBQ rub on the big one. See which one is better, sounds great. Run out of Gospel for the first, that’s ok, I’ll just supplement with this BBQ killer rub, it must be good too, I’ve used it before?
Time to go on the smoker. Grab the probes for the overnight, put the grate probe on the grate. What the hell does HHH mean? I’ve never seen that before. Whatever. Put the butts on the smoker, put a probe in each. Well, look at that, one’s at 135 already. Amazing. Already burnt myself on the probes once, I’m leaving it. We’ll go by the other. This is taking awhile getting them on. Look down in the WSM, and I may as well be looking into the fires of hell. So much for Minion. Which one’s the bigger one? They look the same size now. So much for comparing rubs.
Lid on, close those vents, its HOT!. 20 minutes later, the grate thermometer is reading 412. Ahh, that’s what HHH means, hellfire. Ok. Well, we’re Qing at 412 apparently. First butt is hitting the stall, 5 minutes, that’s gotta be a record.
Realize somethings off, I don’t see any smoke. Right, no wood. Seriously, why am I even out here? Let’s grab some hickory, and some cherry. Oh, and apple, I like apple with pork. What do people smoke pork with anyways? Well, this ought to do. 5 minutes later, wood’s on fire, smoke is happening, even though I’ve got that top vent nearly closed off. Mostly, its leaking out of the door on the WSM. Wonderful. I forgot to mention — with the temp so high, I’m just closing off the top vents, its too damn dark to mess around with the bottom vents, trying to remember which way to kick them with my shoe to close or open. We’ll just handle this with the top. Sure.
Well, I’ve been writing this for an hour or so — past midnight now, temps are down to 310, that’s almost bbq territory. Worst part is, its going to come out fine, and I’m going to get compliments on this tomorrow. That’s right, people are so starved for any decent Q, they have no idea. I’m sure you all have your acts together, know what you’re doing, but I sure as hell don’t.
And I’ll probably do it again in a week or two. I just can’t learn.
-rich
Thought I might smoke up a couple of butts tonight, earlier today. The idea entered my head. They’re on sale at Publix, sort of, terrible sale, $2.50 / lb, but still, not awful. I’ll do an overnight and have some good meat for the week, schools starting and it’ll be nice to not have to cook. I buy two butts, looking for 8#ers, but all they have are 6.5. That’ll do, I spend too much at the grocery store and I’ve got two butts.
Spend the afternoon googling times — is it 1.5 hrs/lb? 2hrs? The internet disagrees, depends a lot on temp. These are not my first ones. I’ve smoked maybe 30-40 butts, not a ton, but enough to know what I’m doing. Ha.
Well, they want to go to the beach in the morning (I’m in FL). 8am. Ok, I’ll get em on at 9 tonight and be good. Well, its storming, and maybe its not a great night for this, ok, I’ll freeze em, and do em next weekend. Flash forward 3 hours (and a few beers), its 9, the rain has stopped, its dark, but just, I can still get these guys on. Let’s do it.
WSM’s a little dirty. I guess I didn’t foil the water pan the last time. I spray it out — in the dark — get most of the crud out, that’ll do well enough I guess. Don’t want to foil it with some crud still there, so, we go with this.
And that’s when I think — is this what Q is? Spraying out the water pan in the dark, at night, just to have some decent food?
Light the coals, we’ll use the minion method, even though I can’t really remember exactly how to do that, just light a few coals. Can’t find the charcoal starter, that’s ok, I’ll just light up the left side of the coals with some fluid. Perfect, that ought to be close enough. Close it up. Somehow, its now 10 pm.
Fill up the water pan with the hose — man, there’s still a lot of crud floating around in there, it’ll be fine — and get the grate on so I can scrape it from whatever I cooked a few weeks ago.
Get the butts going. Hmm, the mustard’s expired, but not too expired? Ask the wife, she doesn’t care about dates as I do, and get her reassurance that I’m being an idiot, its mustard, its fine. Use it.
I’ve got 7 different rubs in the cabinet. Ok, we’ll do the Holy Gospel on the little one, and this Hogs BBQ rub on the big one. See which one is better, sounds great. Run out of Gospel for the first, that’s ok, I’ll just supplement with this BBQ killer rub, it must be good too, I’ve used it before?
Time to go on the smoker. Grab the probes for the overnight, put the grate probe on the grate. What the hell does HHH mean? I’ve never seen that before. Whatever. Put the butts on the smoker, put a probe in each. Well, look at that, one’s at 135 already. Amazing. Already burnt myself on the probes once, I’m leaving it. We’ll go by the other. This is taking awhile getting them on. Look down in the WSM, and I may as well be looking into the fires of hell. So much for Minion. Which one’s the bigger one? They look the same size now. So much for comparing rubs.
Lid on, close those vents, its HOT!. 20 minutes later, the grate thermometer is reading 412. Ahh, that’s what HHH means, hellfire. Ok. Well, we’re Qing at 412 apparently. First butt is hitting the stall, 5 minutes, that’s gotta be a record.
Realize somethings off, I don’t see any smoke. Right, no wood. Seriously, why am I even out here? Let’s grab some hickory, and some cherry. Oh, and apple, I like apple with pork. What do people smoke pork with anyways? Well, this ought to do. 5 minutes later, wood’s on fire, smoke is happening, even though I’ve got that top vent nearly closed off. Mostly, its leaking out of the door on the WSM. Wonderful. I forgot to mention — with the temp so high, I’m just closing off the top vents, its too damn dark to mess around with the bottom vents, trying to remember which way to kick them with my shoe to close or open. We’ll just handle this with the top. Sure.
Well, I’ve been writing this for an hour or so — past midnight now, temps are down to 310, that’s almost bbq territory. Worst part is, its going to come out fine, and I’m going to get compliments on this tomorrow. That’s right, people are so starved for any decent Q, they have no idea. I’m sure you all have your acts together, know what you’re doing, but I sure as hell don’t.
And I’ll probably do it again in a week or two. I just can’t learn.
-rich
