Qviews of my 1st Butt(s) in ProQ Excel 20

[seapup]

Lurker here... I've enjoyed reading your posts here, especially with all the Qview so I thought I'd share. I've been grilling and smoking for decades but never tried butts in a modular bullet, so... thought I'd come out of the closet and share a few Qviews of my 1st pork butts in my ProQ Excel 20 this weekend.

Two 6 pound boneless Boston butts rubbed with mustard and a Ray Lampe based rub. Wrapped tightly with plastic wrap and into the fridge for 18 hours...

Lazy minion method... loaded up the basket with a half bag of the newfangled Kingsford SureFire stuff, 3 chunks of VA wild cherry and one chunk of hickory. Dug a hole in the middle and dumped about 30 hot briquettes.

Put the 1st stacker ring on, inserted the ProQ water tub filled with lava rock instead of water (better heat retention) and placed a big turkey roasting pan on the 1st rack with some hot water, apple juice, apple cider vinegar and Castillo gold rum.

Put the 2nd stacker ring on and placed the butts fatcap up in the center spaced about an inch apart.

Put the lid on, latched it up and let her do her thing smoking @ 230F...

Two hours later, still smoking @ 230F, butts @ 105F... time to start spritzing...

Loaded a spray bottle with unsweetened apple juice, Captain Morgan rum, apple cider vinegar and vegetable oil and sprayed every hour until the butts hit their stall...

6 hours in, smoking @ a stable 230F, butts @ 153F...

8 hours in, hit the stall with butts @ 161F. This stall lasted 3 hours...

Time to switch the spritz to just apple juice and Castillo gold rum...

13 hours in, hit a 2nd stall with butts @ 172F. This agonizing 2nd stall lasted a whopping 3 1/2 hours.

Stopped spritzing to let the bark crisp up. Almost 18 hours in and butt temp finally hit 195F. Resisting the urge to pull a hunk and gorge, I double wrapped them in foil and placed them fatcap down in towel lined cooler for 2 hours.

Temp shot up to 200F within 30 minutes of being placed in the cooler and slowly subsided to 186F after two hours. Pulled from the cooler and chunked to remove fat and cool for 5-10 minutes...

Hand pulled and tossed with a home-grown light finishing sauce...

Ahhh... the breakfast of champions! This is actually my 3rd sandwich... a 3 inch high pile on a Kaiser roll with a dollop of homemade apple pepper chutney.

And for dinner... my 6th sandwich with homemade redskin potato salad...

I know what I'm having for breakfast tomorrow. And lunch. And dinner. LOL!

 

[bbrock]

looks really really good makes me want some. Thanks for the Qview.

 

[tjohnson]

ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL!

Todd

 

[ryan in louisville]

I just read your post this morning (8AM) and am drooling. All the food I will eat today doesn't sound very tasty after reading this.

I have to know, what kind of flavors do you get from the spritz with rum? Wondering how sweet it is.

Also, would you share the recipe for the apple pepper chutney? I searched the site and found nothing.

Thanks,

Ryan

 

[bassman]

Great looking meal. Kaiser rolls are the greatest for pulled pork sandwiches. I spread both halves of them with butter and put on a hot griddle until they're well toasted. Totally different taste.

 

[harleyguy]

Those are a couple of nice looking butts. I also had 2 very long stalls on 2 butts that I smoked last week. I started to panic, but got some good advice on the SMF. Everything turned out good though.Can someone explain the very long & multiple stalls?

 

[fourthwind]

Great looking smoke!

 

[3montes]

Very nice job great looking smoke

How does that ProQ measure up to a wsm? It looks like the sections lock together which would be a nice feature. But how does it compare in terms of build quality and price?

 

[treegje]

Looks Great, it has an awesome smoke ring and looks extremely juicy..

 

[red]

That looks great!

 

[placebo]

That looks fantastic! I wasn't even hungry until I clicked this thread. Very well done. Points!

 

[northern greenhorn]

Nice looking butts, great smoke ring

 

[suthrngrllr]

Nice looking butts; the longer the wait, the better the taste.

 

[smokin relaxin steve]

Looks Great!

 

[thunderdome]

Great pics and post

 

[meateater]

Nice job! Man i love PP.

 

[wmarkw]

Very nice smoke!! How do you like the lava rocks? I'm getting tired of filling my water bowl and if really doesn't add anything to the smoke I would like to nix it. Was thinking clay pot but now I have to look into this.

 

[brutalgrandpa]

Glen, that looks amazing. I forgot I have been a member here and check in frequently and just saw your post. I think I am going to go back to spritzing now and try it your way for the bark.

---Harris

 

[brutalgrandpa]

Lava rocks are awesome. I went from water and tried playground sand but you you have to change it often. I bought a 7lb bag of lava rocks and put them in the proq and haven't changed them in 8 months. They hold the heat awesome and you can do what Seapup did and just add the pan above it for moisture if you choose.

 

[seapup]

I can't really describe the flavor adequately... it definitely doesn't taste like rum in the slightest and it's not overly sweet. The wood and rub that I used combined with the spritz is (to me) the perfect balance of sweet, salt, smoke, heat and spice. I can honestly say I've never tasted this combo on Q before and I LOVE IT! It was a big hit in the house, especially with the 8 year old. She threw the bun out and requested another pile of just PP.

I wish I could share the chutney recipe, but it's not exclusively mine... it's my family's. The last person in my family that did that got disowned as that particular marinade/sauce ended up in the hands of Kikkoman, who currently markets it on the shelves.