question about my smoking

[toolhater]

i have a klose offset smoker, the kind with the firebox on the side. I smoked a couple of pork butts this weekend. For seven hours the tempature (the thermometer built into the smoker, said 230. The pork butts were 5 and six pounds. When the seven hours ended, i checked one and it was at 175 inside, the 5pounder so we ate it sliced. However, the second one we left in for almost another five hours and it never seemed to get higher than than 170.

Any ideas what I might be doing wrong? My fire was started with lump charcoal and then burned hickory the rest of the time.

Any ideas? I have order a digital thermometer from amazon (which I did not have) but I have also read posts about the internal thermometers that keep the temp of not only the meat but the heat. I'm confused as some say these work, some say those work and it goes on and on. Please, I would love to hear some ideas. I read the thread on thermometes but left just as confused as i was when i started.

 

[krusher]

one thing you could do when you get your digital is to get up to temp on your built in gauge and check its accuracy. a dual zone thermometer is kool because you can monitor the internal temp. of your meat as well as the smokers temp.

another thing is that your smoker will have hot spots, the closer to the firebox the hotter,, might want to check out some of the mods in the charcoal smoker forums

 

[krusher]

that other butt might have stalled also, but for that long it sounds to me that maybe theres sumthin else goin on there

 

[tn_bbq]

Get a good instant read probe thermometer and keep smoking those butts until they hit 195.

You're probably plateaued and needed more time to get over that hump. When they hit 190/200 they should crumble and pull apart easily.

You might want to wrap in foil once they hit 160/170. This helps speed up the smoking process.

 

[shooterrick]

First let me say that regardless of what therm you have I have gotten odd readings usually because of my pour placement in the meat. Try to make sure the end of the therm is in thickest part and not against bone or too far in meaning close to the bottom outside. Also make sure your not still frozen in the center. I did that once also. I use the therms noted at bottom of this post. They work fine for the most part. Some things I like some things I dont. Good LLuck

 

[capt dan]

Klose makes an excellent smoker/cooker. I am sure you just need to get it figured out.

I would head on down to the "rool call" forums and introduce yourself, and let us know a little about you, your rig, and what ya do, and like to do. Kinda family type stuff.!

 

[ajthepoolman]

I kid you not, I had a 9 pound butt that stalled for over 6 hours. In fact, a 12 pounder that was in the same smoker, for the same amount of time, finished before this one.

The painful truth is that it comes down to fattiness and other connective tissues that can't be guaged by looking through the shrink wrap.

Get a couple of thermometers. One for the meat, another for the smoke chamber. Monitor the meat by sticking the probe in a couple of inches. Avoid the bone. Infact, stick the probe in at the opposite end.

Take the other thermometer and put it inside the smoker. Don't ever trust the built in thermometers on smokers. For reasons I can't explain, they say to avoid putting the probe on the metal grates. Get a piece of wood or cork and use that to suspend the probe above or below the grate.

Monitor the smoker temp. Try to maintain 225 to 240.

Monitor the meat temp. It will climb to 100 degrees pretty quickly. Then watch for a stall somewhere between 140 to 160. At 160, take the meat out and double wrap it in heavy duty foil. Add a splash of apple juice or orange juice and seal the meat up. Don't take the thermometer out though!

Put it back in the smoker and let it cook until it hits 200 degrees. Chances are, you will hit another plateau. Don't crank up the temp of the smoker. Let it ride. Eventually the temp will creep up to 200. At that point, pull it out of the smoker and put it onto a cookie sheet and into a cold oven. Some people wrap in towels and place in a cooler. Whatever. The point is, let the meat rest and reabsorb the juices left inside.

Did you remove the thermometer? Don't! Leave it in there. When the temp of the meat has dropped to 170 or so, open the foil and start pulling! The meat should rip apart like nothing you have ever seen. Have a tissue ready, you will start crying.

Make some of SoFlaQuer's Finishing Sauce (you will find it on the forum somewhere) and squirt it over the meat.

If you die at that very moment, have a surgeon on standby to remove the smile from your face for the funneral. It is awkward having the person in the casket smiling with pork juice all over themselves!

And finally, invite all of us over! Damn I am hungry!