My First Attempt!

[chopsaw]

Fat side (and bone) up or down?

Now ya did it .
I'll give the first up .

 

[Mike Kilo]

Now ya did it .
I'll give the first up .

Let me rephrase:
Fat side towards the heat (down in my vertical smoker) or away from it?

And go!

 

[chopsaw]

I don’t think I’ll be doing another chicken. Turkey legs perhaps…

That was your first smoke , and it looked fine . You just have to learn the tweaks . I do a lot of poultry , and you should try another .
Look for Tony Chachere's injection at the store . Works wonders , and an easy place to start . Then you can move on to making your own brines and injections .

 

[Mike Kilo]

Ok, after a bit more research I’ll be doing fat side down (towards the heat source).

Gonna try 300 for this one. Want to eat it tonight, lol.

Used roughly 50/50 applewood and mesquite chunks dry in cast iron pan.

Did use water pan as I was worried about flare ups from dripping fat since I just had cast iron pan over heat directly below the butt.

Seems to be smoking much more this time than when I did the bird (I did wet down the chunks last time but only for like 20 minutes).

Here are a couple of pictures and one of the smoke bellowing out (I have the two bottom vents open about 1/5 and the top vent about ¼ open).

 

[Mike Kilo]

That was your first smoke , and it looked fine . You just have to learn the tweaks . I do a lot of poultry , and you should try another .
Look for Tony Chachere's injection at the store . Works wonders , and an easy place to start . Then you can move on to making your own brines and injections .

I do love Chachere’s seasoning, I will definitely hunt down the injection.

 

[Mike Kilo]

So, the smoke level is now back down to where it was last time. Must have just been the initial heating up of the dry chunks that caused the deluge…

Apologies for the frequent posts, but I am enjoying getting to know my new hobby, lol, and everyone’s comments and advice are just adding to my experience. Thanks again for all the help!

I must go now to shop for my new remote reading, multi-probe thermometer set up!

 

[noboundaries]

I must go now to shop for my new remote reading, multi-probe thermometer set up!

A fun tool, but consider it an advisor, not a professor. Your hands, with a sharp probe, will teach you more about tender meat than a thermometer ever could. Internal meat temp is only a suggestion, not a destination.

A butt at 203°F may be perfect one time and underdone/overdone the next. Different animals make the difference. Butts, briskets, picnics, chuckles will talk to you when you probe them for tenderness.

 

[Mike Kilo]

A fun tool, but consider it an advisor, not a professor. Your hands, with a sharp probe, will teach you more about tender meat than a thermometer ever could. Internal meat temp is only a suggestion, not a destination.

A butt at 203°F may be perfect one time and underdone/overdone the next. Different animals make the difference. Butts, briskets, picnics, chuckles will talk to you when you probe them for tenderness.

Absolutely.

It will be a tool to reassure me that my smoker is still where it should be temp wise and tell me when to start poking.

 

[Mike Kilo]

Started poking around 196 IT and when it hit 203 it felt right to me, easy, smooth slide in and a little bit of grab pulling it back out. So, I took it out of the smoker and it is now sitting in the oven resting (oven is not turned on). Any suggestions on how long to let it rest before I start pulling it apart?

More to come.

 

[schlotz]

Personally, I wrap right out of the smoker and put in a cooler with towels for a couple of hours. The rest time does yummy things.

 

[Mike Kilo]

Personally, I wrap right out of the smoker and put in a cooler with towels for a couple of hours. The rest time does yummy things.

I have heard others say the same thing. Apparently some have a meat resting cooler used for nothing else.

I’ll give that a try next time. Very much in the trying different things to figure out which I like best stage right now.

Better late than never, right?!?

 

[JckDanls 07]

Personally, I wrap right out of the smoker and put in a cooler with towels for a couple of hours. The rest time does yummy things.

X2 ... your Butt looks scrumptious ( I had to) ...

top vent about ¼ open

Next time run with top vent wide open... all temp control is done with bottom (intake) vents ... If you have the smoker choked down with the exhaust (top) vent then you are holding back any stale smoke

 

[Mike Kilo]

X2 ... your Butt looks scrumptious ( I had to) ...



Next time run with top vent wide open... all temp control is done with bottom (intake) vents ... If you have the smoker choked down with the exhaust (top) vent then you are holding back any stale smoke

Hahahahah! I’ll give you that one. Not that I haven’t heard that before…

Ok, good tip on the vents. Will definitely give that a go next time!

 

[schlotz]

I have heard others say the same thing. Apparently some have a meat resting cooler used for nothing else.

I’ll give that a try next time. Very much in the trying different things to figure out which I like best stage right now.

Better late than never, right?!?

Any large cooler will work. Doesn't have to be a dedicated one. I used a rolling one for years because it was big, just added a few more towels. These days I found this one a while back that works pretty good.

 

[GaryHibbert]

Gotta say your first smoke in your new smoker looks like it turned out great. Nice job.
Can't say I've ever had fall off the bone chicken. And as far as crispy skin goes, I don't figure you'd like my advice. ALL poultry skin at our place goes straight into my old hound Roxy's bowl.
Gary

 

[GaryHibbert]

Dang it, I'm getting old. Forgot to welcome you to the Forum. No question about it--you picked the best one to join.
Gary

 

[Mike Kilo]

Final results for today’s project.

8.14lb butt yielded 3lbs 2.5 ozs (plus some “quality control” sampling) of pulled pork.

The vast majority of the meat pretty much fell apart for me in my hands as I was separating the unrendered fat out. There were a few small sections that required a bit of effort to pull, but still looked great when done. And then there were a couple of really small corner/point pieces that were dry and crunchy and I nibbled on them or tossed them.

Smells wonderful (as it did the entire time, lol) and the taste was definitely to my liking. I took Tallbm’s advice on the seasoning and used a mixture of SPOG, one measure of each, and added 1/3 measure each of paprika and cumin (I really like the flavor cumin gives to meat). Mixed the spices, took the butt out of the package and rubbed it down while moist. It sat for maybe 15 minutes while I was getting the smoker all set and ready to go and it went in at 300.

Temps were all over the place, unfortunately, as I am still getting used to regulating temp and smoke with the burner and the vents. And, OF COURSE, the propane tank ran out a couple of hours in! If I had to estimate a temp chart it would look like this:
300 for about 30 mins
350 for about 30 mins
275 for about an hour
325 for about an hour
250 for about 30 mins
200 for about 15 mins (the changing of the tank)
275 for about 20 mins
325 for the rest of the time until the IT hit 203.

Even the wife liked the taste of the meat and she is not a huge smoked/BBQ fan (I love her for other reasons, lol).

Here are some pictures. Not sure I’m ready for fish yet, might try brining/injecting a bird and doing that again…

Oh, also, I did do the slice down the middle, but I didn’t get it exactly in the middle and I think the smaller section got a bit dryer. Also, there was not a lot of a fat cap on this out of the package, probably only about ⅛ to ¼ inch maximum, so I did NOTHING to that. Fat side was down for this run.

Had to add more wood chunks once and refilled the water dish twice.

 

[Mike Kilo]

.

 

[JckDanls 07]

I would have suggested the fat cap UP... this lets the fat render down and soaks into the meat instead of dripping into the pan and losing it ...

might try brining/injecting a bird

Myself I only brine my birds... Overnight is plenty long enough... Base brine is 1-1-1 .... 1 gallon of water.. 1 cup of kosher salt ... 1 cup of sugar ...

 

[Mike Kilo]

I would have suggested the fat cap UP... this lets the fat render down and soaks into the meat instead of dripping into the pan and losing it ...



Myself I only brine my birds... Overnight is plenty long enough... Base brine is 1-1-1 .... 1 gallon of water.. 1 cup of kosher salt ... 1 cup of sugar ...

I will give that a try with my next bird!