Three different kinds of pork...ham, ribs, loin +MES 30 Cart

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tlcase

Smoke Blower
Original poster
Oct 9, 2011
124
34
Conrad, IA
Well, I've been busy and not keeping up on sharing my adventures with my MES 30. Time to catch up and I'm doing it all in one post. Some good, some decent, some bad....well here we go.

I had a Cure 81 ham in the freezer and and decided I wanted to "twice" smoke it. This was a few days after Christmas and I also did a couple turkey breast roasts. No pics of the poultry for some reason but they were great....injected with creole butter and rubbed with cajun shake. Sliced up one for sammies, sliced, vac sealed, and froze the other. The ham was a different story altogether. I had some Tony C's praline honey ham so I injected it with it. I used an apple/pecan mix in my AMNPS. About an hour before I took it off, I covered with some more of the injection and pasted on a brown sugar and crushed pecan mixture. I took it off at 160, let it sit for a few minutes and sliced.

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Well, the crust on top was amazing. The ham on the other hand had okay flavor but was pretty tough. We usually do these in the crock pot and they always turn out well so in the crock pot it went later on and it was salvaged. Not sure I'll stray from the crock pot for a Cure 81 again.

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Next up I brought home a pack of spares from Sam's Club New Years Eve.

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This was actually my first try at ribs so I went all out. I made my first try at trimming to St. Louis Style. I didn't quite find the right spot but they didn't turn out too bad. The larger end still had some of the "knuckle" in there but it was easy enough to eat around.

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I saved the trimming and froze it. I'm going to throw them on some day when I'm bored and try Dutch's Wicked Beans.

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The slabs got a light coat of mustard and a 50/50 mix of Famous Daves Rib Rub and Cowgirl Ride Em Rub and then into the fridge for the night.

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The next day I went with the typical 3-2-1 with the MES set at 240. I didn't spritz or apply sauce either. I wanted a dry rib and served sauce on the side. I used three seperate racks on the MES. At the end of the foil stage, the top two still had plenty of apple juice in the foil but the bottom one was dry. I'm thinking it all boiled off and it certainly showed as that rack was quite a bit tougher than the other two. Lesson learned, I'll rotate next time.

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I had my folks come over and they were just a touch too spicy for them so next time I'll do a milder rub. Funny how they both had seconds anyway. Otherwise they were tender and I was a fan of the flavor.  

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Not the best pic...

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Okay, onto today's smoke. First of all I picked up a whole pork loin and one of the steel utility carts at Sam's Club the other day. The cart....I'm here to tell you this is a great option for an MES. I'm pretty tall and hate stooping so I wanted to place my MES on the top shelf. In order to do so you have to install the deeper rack in the middle. Lots of room for chips, racks, foil pans and such on the bottom. I plan to pick up a ceramic tile to set to the left of the MES so I can light my AMNPS right there.

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Also, having a toddler around, I wanted to make sure the MES didn't get fall off accidently. This was accomplished by simply using some large wire ties around the legs in all four corners. If I ever need to clean underneath they can easily be cut and replaced.

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We had a planned power outage at work and I got off at 2pm today. I cut about 1/3 off one end of the whole loin and decided to smoke it today. Last night I injected it with the rest of the creole butter I had in the fridge and placed it in my foodsaver marinator with the rest of the liquid. Today I removed an gave it a dusting with creole seasoning. Threw it in a 250 degree MES with apple chips for 3 1/2 hours and pulled it right at 160. Rested it in foil for about 15 minutes and sliced her up.

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We don't like pink pork so this was perfect for us. Still nice and juicy.

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I think it was a little lacking in smoke flavor but the injection and seasoning made up for it. Fantastic flavor, tender and I can believe all the juice that came out of this sucker. I will do this again.

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That's all for now. I've been enjoying all the cheese I smoked before the holidays and so is everyone else I share it with. Happy smoking!
 
Everything looks great

Just a question about the ham,  Did you cold or hot smoke it.  I normally do a cold smoke and it comes out tremendous.  No problem with it drying out.

Thanks for all the Qview
 
Everything looks great

Just a question about the ham,  Did you cold or hot smoke it.  I normally do a cold smoke and it comes out tremendous.  No problem with it drying out.

Thanks for all the Qview
Hot smoke. Maybe I'll cold smoke one and then all day it in the crock pot......
 
Ham and Hamburger are two meats that I never freeze...The texture changes and the meat always come out drier than if cooked fresh...Everything you made looks good...JJ
 
I think your being too hard on yourself. Everything you made looks very good, as for the dry ham, since it's already cooked we usually just smoke them to about 135-140 and they are very juicy.
 
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