I picked up a butt last night that was just slightly over 7lbs last night and had planned on throwing it in the pit early this morning. I figured that if I got it on at 7am, there was a chance that I could have it for dinner tonight. If not, I had some beercan chicken that I had made earlier this week and the rest of the stuff to make some green chile chicken enchiladas. Well, I woke up at 6:30, but didn't get the butt on until 8am. There was still a chance, so I chugged along happily for the next few hours. I put some beans on under the butt to both act as a water pan, a drip pan, and also, because, well, I like beans. I knew that I was going to need some charcoal, but there is a Lowes that I could walk to if I wasn't so lazy, get the charcoal and then walk back in time to keep temps from going totally out of whack, and they are selling Frontier Hardwood Lump. It's supposedly not as good as the other Frontier product , but, hey, it is a lot better than Cowboy and it's close.
Well, the stall hits, I put some charcoal on, go take care of a couple of things, discover one of those unexpected necessary store trips that has nothing to do with the butt that I'm cooking, but now I have my dad to rely on. Besides, I figured I'd pick up 3 more bags of the Frontier charcoal while I was out. Before I leave, I add some charcoal, look at the temps briefly to make sure they aren't going to spike up high enough to melt steel, then hand the et-732 receiver to my dad, with some fairly simple instructions. See, he's never run the smoker, so I figured I'd broaden up the temperature range for him a bit so that it wasn't that complex. I figured a little bit of a spike was fine, so long as it wasn't huge, and I also figured that a dip down to 195 wasn't a huge deal, so long as it didn't last for a long time. My instructions were simple: If it spikes, don't worry about it so long as it doesn't get too much above 250. If it does, call me. If the alarm goes off and it says 195, give me a call and I'll tell you what to do. Simple, right?
The store trip took longer than expected. I learned a lesson here too. My father is not a good pit master. He doesn't call when things get out of whack because he'll most likely be napping in a recliner. This is where things started to go down hill.
I get back and he said that the temperature spiked above 180.
*BLINK* *BLINK*
.
.
.
*BLINK* *BLINK*
.
.
.
*Looks at receiver*...*FACE PALM*
Yeah, it was just under 180 after that "spike," and the butt had been in the middle of the stall. Now the meat temp was dropping. Fast. Low and slow you say? I'll give you low and slow. Just let my dad take a nap in the chair and you'll see low and slow.
Great, now I've got this new bag of Frontier that I opened, so I dump some into the chimney and put it on a single burner propane stove to get it going. There's some popping and whatnot, but nothing excessive. It gets going and I put it in the pit. By now, the pit temp is way low and the meat temp has dropped enough that I'd lost at least 90 min. No butt for me tonight. Sigh.
Well, off to chopping up the chicken and green chile, frying corn tortillas, etc... Whoops, it's time to add more charcoal again, so I go to my newly opened bag of Frontier charcoal and discover that the jack booted thugs who unloaded it had stomped everything but the top of the bag. I'd already used the top of the bag. I think that I have the black lung now. Or something. I was in a hurry, so I just set it on the burner, then went in to continue prepping the enchiladas. I'm chopping and sautéing onions, piling cheese on the chicken and making an all around tasty heart attack, when I look out at the chimney. I'll let you guess the words that came out of my mouth when I saw the 4th of July happening out there. Man, that charcoal dust was spitting embers well over 6 feet above the top of the chimney. Out I run to take it off the burner, hoping that the sparks will stop flying. Yeah right. Half the stuff had fallen of flown out of the chimney to boot! the rest of the bag was even worse. Stupid jack booted thugs. I probably got the equivalent of 1 full chimney out of that bag. I learned another lesson here: When buying lump charcoal, feel my way around like a blind man at a house of ill repute.
I pulled the enchiladas out of the oven, got a few other things ready for diner, then realized that I should probably have some of the beans with it all, so I pulled them off without thinking of the unintended consequences. Green chile can do that to me. So can hunger. I dished up my dinner and all was good. Until I realized that I had turned the alarm on the receiver off and removing the beans was the same as removing a water pan. Uh oh, the pit temp was now over 280 and climbing. It hadn't been there that long, so no damage was done to the butt (AFAIK,) but those enchiladas were good and now I had to go adjust the dampers and draft control to bring the temp back down, then take the time to make sure everything was under control.
Back to eating enchiladas. Did I mention that they were good?
Now this is turning into the butt from hell. I had gotten it past its stall, then it stalled again. Time for more charcoal, This time from the 2nd of the new bags. The first one didn't last too long. I was wincing here after the last one, but I picked it up and felt it, and it felt like it had a bunch of huge chunks in it. Then I dumped some out and they actually huge chunks. Huge, as in 5 or 6 took up 2/3 of the chimney. That seems to be the MO for the whole bag. Almost no crackling and definitely no fireworks! Something had to go well this day. That is, until I realized that I should take a pic of the butt that somehow at least still looks good for a qview, yet could not find my camera.
Well, I put it on at 8am in the morning. It's now 12:10am the next morning and I have another 9 degrees to go. This had better be the best piece of butt I've ever had.
Well, the stall hits, I put some charcoal on, go take care of a couple of things, discover one of those unexpected necessary store trips that has nothing to do with the butt that I'm cooking, but now I have my dad to rely on. Besides, I figured I'd pick up 3 more bags of the Frontier charcoal while I was out. Before I leave, I add some charcoal, look at the temps briefly to make sure they aren't going to spike up high enough to melt steel, then hand the et-732 receiver to my dad, with some fairly simple instructions. See, he's never run the smoker, so I figured I'd broaden up the temperature range for him a bit so that it wasn't that complex. I figured a little bit of a spike was fine, so long as it wasn't huge, and I also figured that a dip down to 195 wasn't a huge deal, so long as it didn't last for a long time. My instructions were simple: If it spikes, don't worry about it so long as it doesn't get too much above 250. If it does, call me. If the alarm goes off and it says 195, give me a call and I'll tell you what to do. Simple, right?
The store trip took longer than expected. I learned a lesson here too. My father is not a good pit master. He doesn't call when things get out of whack because he'll most likely be napping in a recliner. This is where things started to go down hill.
I get back and he said that the temperature spiked above 180.
*BLINK* *BLINK*
.
.
.
*BLINK* *BLINK*
.
.
.
*Looks at receiver*...*FACE PALM*
Yeah, it was just under 180 after that "spike," and the butt had been in the middle of the stall. Now the meat temp was dropping. Fast. Low and slow you say? I'll give you low and slow. Just let my dad take a nap in the chair and you'll see low and slow.
Great, now I've got this new bag of Frontier that I opened, so I dump some into the chimney and put it on a single burner propane stove to get it going. There's some popping and whatnot, but nothing excessive. It gets going and I put it in the pit. By now, the pit temp is way low and the meat temp has dropped enough that I'd lost at least 90 min. No butt for me tonight. Sigh.
Well, off to chopping up the chicken and green chile, frying corn tortillas, etc... Whoops, it's time to add more charcoal again, so I go to my newly opened bag of Frontier charcoal and discover that the jack booted thugs who unloaded it had stomped everything but the top of the bag. I'd already used the top of the bag. I think that I have the black lung now. Or something. I was in a hurry, so I just set it on the burner, then went in to continue prepping the enchiladas. I'm chopping and sautéing onions, piling cheese on the chicken and making an all around tasty heart attack, when I look out at the chimney. I'll let you guess the words that came out of my mouth when I saw the 4th of July happening out there. Man, that charcoal dust was spitting embers well over 6 feet above the top of the chimney. Out I run to take it off the burner, hoping that the sparks will stop flying. Yeah right. Half the stuff had fallen of flown out of the chimney to boot! the rest of the bag was even worse. Stupid jack booted thugs. I probably got the equivalent of 1 full chimney out of that bag. I learned another lesson here: When buying lump charcoal, feel my way around like a blind man at a house of ill repute.
I pulled the enchiladas out of the oven, got a few other things ready for diner, then realized that I should probably have some of the beans with it all, so I pulled them off without thinking of the unintended consequences. Green chile can do that to me. So can hunger. I dished up my dinner and all was good. Until I realized that I had turned the alarm on the receiver off and removing the beans was the same as removing a water pan. Uh oh, the pit temp was now over 280 and climbing. It hadn't been there that long, so no damage was done to the butt (AFAIK,) but those enchiladas were good and now I had to go adjust the dampers and draft control to bring the temp back down, then take the time to make sure everything was under control.
Back to eating enchiladas. Did I mention that they were good?
Now this is turning into the butt from hell. I had gotten it past its stall, then it stalled again. Time for more charcoal, This time from the 2nd of the new bags. The first one didn't last too long. I was wincing here after the last one, but I picked it up and felt it, and it felt like it had a bunch of huge chunks in it. Then I dumped some out and they actually huge chunks. Huge, as in 5 or 6 took up 2/3 of the chimney. That seems to be the MO for the whole bag. Almost no crackling and definitely no fireworks! Something had to go well this day. That is, until I realized that I should take a pic of the butt that somehow at least still looks good for a qview, yet could not find my camera.
Well, I put it on at 8am in the morning. It's now 12:10am the next morning and I have another 9 degrees to go. This had better be the best piece of butt I've ever had.
