Somking My First Boston Butt

[oloren]

I am  getting a smoker for  Father's day  the one with the firebox on the side.

Anyway i want to try  a all wood smoke i have maple  wild cherry and hickory.  Does anyone  have a tips for doing this i read all about the process and watch some u tube videos. Just wondered if anyone had any suggesting for my 1st pork butt. I know that the Hickory has strong favor and i thinking about using a 1hickory 2 cherry and 1 maple   to start my smoke. i am getting around a 5 to 6 pound butt so i am thinking it will take about 6 to 8 hours of smoke time

Thanks,

Greg

 

[meateater]

Welcome to the SMF. Glad to have you here. Lots of good folks, great recipes and knowledge. Looking forward to your first qview.

 

[timberjet]

Use good probes and check temps often. I used apple on A ten pounder yesterday and it took about 12 hours before resting, probably 8 hours to reach 165 and then four double wrapped in foil then one hour in the cooler wrapped up in towels. I'm so full I might yack. What kind of unit are you going to get? Oh, and welcome aboard.

 

[rc1991]

One thing I learned here so far with regard to time is that I was always underestimating! So if you figure 8 hours it may be closer to 12! I did a 6.5 lb butt a few weeks ago and started it at 2:30 am figuring it would be done by 4 or so. I had it in the smoker for about 15 hours and it was at 170 - ended up finishing in the oven since the guests were coming at 6! It came out really good though.

 

[graybeard]

Hello Greg! Time and temp is most important. A good gauge is necessary. Don't build a fire to large. Good luck,

beard

 

[mballi3011]

 First off welcome Greg to SMF. You'll like it here cause there are alot of really good folks that would just love to help you with anything to do with smoking. Now we like having new folks here to give a new prospective on some of the ways we do things around here. Now if you are really new then I would suggest that you sign up fir the 5-day E-course it free and it will give you the basics on smoking and a few recipes too. Here's a link to it:

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/forum/list/127

then you will have a method to your newly found madness and believe me it will be a madness. Then when you start smoking things you will have to learn how to post the pictures / Qview 

here. So here's a link to a tutorial on how to post your Qview so we can see what your doing.

 http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/forum/thread/82034/how-to-post-qview-to-smf

Now the next thing you have to do is run out and get something to smoke. Then just smoke it and if you have any questions just post  them here and we will answer all your questions that you might have. Oh yea there's no stupid questions we were all there in the beginning and we just really like to help others enjoy the fabulous smoked foods that we do. So again

 

Welcome to Your New Addiction

 

[hdsmoke]

Make sure you get some kind of temp guage on your rack.  If you have a factory thermo on the lid it more than likely wont be accurate for grate level.  Even a cheap oven thermo you can set on the grate then you can compare that to the lid and know where you are.  You want to be between 225-250 for a pork shoulder, and figure 1.5 hour per pound as a starting point.  Mixture of wood sounds good...go easy on the hickory if you have never eaten anything smoked before as it can be strong to some people. 

You should make a basket for your firebox to hold charcoal to get airflow up under it rather than sitting on the bottom.  Then fill it up with unlit charcoal and then dumpa  chimney of lit on top of it and use your intake to regulate temp and leave yoru exhause wide open the ENTIRE time you are cooking. 

 

[placebo]

Not sure if your new to smoking or not but just in case. When you say, "all wood smoke" I'm assuming you will not be using any charcoal at all so I have to ask will you be using wood chunks you got from a store? Or seasoned sticks cut to size for your firebox? Nothing wrong with mixing wood but if this is your very first time smoking then I would suggest staying with one type of wood for each smoke so you have an idea of how each type effects the food you are cooking before you start mixing them. There really is quite a difference in the flavor each types gives to meat. A butt is a great choice for a first smoke, as mentioned above set aside more time than you think it will take. Have fun!

 

[oloren]

Hey,

Guy thank you all of your post. I did a pork butt and man it was great  i had some temp spikes up to 300 but i quickly got that back down i stay around 210 for the most park it rained the 2 hours so i had to move the butt inside and finshed it in the over for a hour man it was so good. I am going up on some family land wed and  chop up some apple wood to use for Sun going to try ribs and a chicken. This is one of the best hobby i have been in years  i thinking about added  a hard cider to next time to the pork .

Thank you all the post

 

[lugnutz]

Not sure if the apple your gonna cut is green or dead but I'd avoid using green wood and stick to some that is seasoned ( dry ).