It's been a couple weekends but the memory is still fresh of a camping trip to the Siskiyou Mountains with some of my Clamper brothers. We were putting up a historical mounument/marker in the Siskiyou Pass and the cooking crew wasn't going to be out until Saturday so I volunteered to cook for the plaque construction crew Friday night.
We pulled into camp Thursday night late, it was 34° F, dark and windy. I'm doing a 12lb pork shoulder and want to start at 4am. It was very difficult to climb out of the bag in now freezing weather at 31° but I managed, abandoned the injection about 1/4 of the way through as it's partially frozen liquid, lol.
I'm using a 30" Smoke Hollow vertical propane cabinet. I couldn't get the temp above 180° for a long time, well into the afternoon. We had to move camp mid smoke, about 9am, to another site 2 miles away with a pavillion dug into the hill that could block the wind. It wasn't until about 2pm in the afternoon, smoker still around 185° that my buddy suggested we use a blanket we had cleaned up from the woods at a previous spot to wrap around the smoker and hold heat in. We used it for drippings when we moved the smoker that morning.
I'll admit I was highly skeptical and wary of this strange blanket that smelled of patchouli oil touching my smoker. It took him 45 minutes to talk me into it. Was only 15 minutes later I realized how right he was. That smoker really needs an insulation mod. Not something I had even thought of besides some door gasketing. Got right up to 225° after that even touching 230 sometimes.
With the huge delay in the early part of the day it was dark again when I served dinner around 9:45pm, 3 and a half hours and 3 shots of bourbon past my intended schedule. I felt really bad but the pork was amazing. I used a memphis style rib rub with a little added heat in cayenne and cajun. I used the finishing sauce from SoFlaQuer's post.
Needless to say I have now read many ways to insulate my smoker, using a moving blanket now but am moving on to cut out bubble foil wrap this month!
Didn't get a Q View but here is a shot of the scenery from my smoker's point of view.
We pulled into camp Thursday night late, it was 34° F, dark and windy. I'm doing a 12lb pork shoulder and want to start at 4am. It was very difficult to climb out of the bag in now freezing weather at 31° but I managed, abandoned the injection about 1/4 of the way through as it's partially frozen liquid, lol.
I'm using a 30" Smoke Hollow vertical propane cabinet. I couldn't get the temp above 180° for a long time, well into the afternoon. We had to move camp mid smoke, about 9am, to another site 2 miles away with a pavillion dug into the hill that could block the wind. It wasn't until about 2pm in the afternoon, smoker still around 185° that my buddy suggested we use a blanket we had cleaned up from the woods at a previous spot to wrap around the smoker and hold heat in. We used it for drippings when we moved the smoker that morning.
I'll admit I was highly skeptical and wary of this strange blanket that smelled of patchouli oil touching my smoker. It took him 45 minutes to talk me into it. Was only 15 minutes later I realized how right he was. That smoker really needs an insulation mod. Not something I had even thought of besides some door gasketing. Got right up to 225° after that even touching 230 sometimes.
With the huge delay in the early part of the day it was dark again when I served dinner around 9:45pm, 3 and a half hours and 3 shots of bourbon past my intended schedule. I felt really bad but the pork was amazing. I used a memphis style rib rub with a little added heat in cayenne and cajun. I used the finishing sauce from SoFlaQuer's post.
Needless to say I have now read many ways to insulate my smoker, using a moving blanket now but am moving on to cut out bubble foil wrap this month!
Didn't get a Q View but here is a shot of the scenery from my smoker's point of view.
