New to smokehouse cooking. From S. Tn, USA

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rugged cross

Newbie
Original poster
Nov 13, 2013
9
10
South Central Tennessee, USA
Hello my name is Greg. I live in South Central Tennessee, USA.

This will be my first use of a smoke house. I have been smoking using a grill or campfire for years. I tend to try to stick with cooking on or with wood.

I recently acquired a 4' x 4' x 8' wooden wood shed that i converted by sealing up the large damaged areas and placing my smoker can inside for the fire box. (Safety was a factor so my firebox is raised 6 " with a metal floor under it.)  I hope to slow cook  over a period of days (????) using seasoned and green hickory. (Yes, I "cheated" a little by using some liquid hickory in my marinade- which will marinate about 36 hrs.)I plan to use the seasoned wood to obtain my coal bed and then use the green wood (for its moisture content) to smoke. 

I will be doing a roughly 10 lb pork butt, two 3 lb beef bottom round tip roasts and a 3 lb bottom round roast.

I plan to only flavor the singular bottom round for later use. The two bottom round tip roasts and the pork butt I want to cook, again slowly so I can get as much flavor as possible.

Does anyone have any advice?
 
Welcome to SMF Rugged Cross, glad to have you here! Since you're talking about doing a slow cook over a period of days, I hope that you have included cure #1 in your process? You didn't mention what temp you are going to cook at.
 
That would actually be my question, Dutch. I guess that I should have made it more clear. I just want to get a tender slightly caramelized finished product aside from the piece that I only plan to flavor then freeze.

I let a friend use my smokehouse passively so we weren't able to talk much about the process. He did cure first. But I usually cook overnight at most and eat. This is all new to me.
 
BTW my firebox started life as one of those little two foot tall Weber, backyard griller wants to try his hand at smoking, smokers. I have enlarged the smoke vent and removed the racks for more fire.
 
If you're not going to cook with chamber temps between 225°-250° you really need to use some form of cure. Since you're wanting to do this tomorrow, you won't have enough time to allow the cure to penetrate the meat to do cooking with the chamber temps below 200°. Figure on 1 1/2 hours per pound of meat with chamber temps at 250°. So your 10 lb pork butt will take between 15-20 hrs and your 3 lb roasts will take about 4 1/2-5 hours. Your butt you'll want to take to an internal temp of 205° for pulling and your roast you can take to your desired doneness-145° for medium rare up to 170° for well. As with any 'que-the meat will be done when it's done-a cooking time is at best an educated guess.
 
Thanks for the info Dutch. I just watched a video on curing and singed up for the 5 day course. I was in a time crunch this time with travel planned but, with outside temps coming down I will plan a traditional cure for next time.  

When I cure do I marinate before or after the cure?
 
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Hello and welcome from East Texas. This is a great site, lots of information and great people that are willing to throw in their two cents worth on about anything   ......... 
[/h1][h1]  [/h1][h1]Gary[/h1]
 
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