Smoked Butt
I smoke things, although these days I stick to the non controlled substances and avoid tobacco as well.
The last Sunday in April it was raining a little bit, but since the shoulder
I used a recipe from Smoke & Spice which I've done before. About page 52.
The remote readout thermometer is added.
The offset smoker is ready.
The extension is for the starter, I couldn't find the chimney, put it some place 'safe' last fall (Look in the smoker). And the hose is for safety. The orange bucket nearest is soaking wood.
I've now opened the smoker, discovered the chimney which can be seen on the bottom right.
I use Kingsford, but don't use lighter fluid or easy light briquettes. I will probably hear from some fellow bloggers who make their own charcoal.
The trees are just coming into leaf.
This is about 7 am by the way, dinner is at 8 pm.
We have smoke, which will continue for the next 12 hours.
Better think about the mop.
The liquid is cider vineagar and those are the ingrediants called for by the book.
Now lets mop.
The smoker was an assemble your self job from Home Depot and is about four years old.
The zip lock holds the thermometer, it is raining a bit.
Now I wasn't sitting around those hours while the pork smoked. Wood needed to be added, as did charcoal from time to time. And if you look at the previous post you will see two pates, one of which included smoked chicken livers. You guessed it, it was a busy Sunday.
Beer seemed appropriate with this, and the sauce was vinegar based.
You can just make out the sauce in the upper left corner. While this was supposed to be pulled pork sandwichs, the pork just wouldn't pull so I sliced it.
That pink on the outer edge is the smoke rim or ring.
It is nice out today, my wife's jury only sat an hour (but she has to be in at 8 AM in the morning) so she will stop at the ShopRite on the way home from looting the garden centers of Westchester and buy a rack of ribs for me to grill. Probably a Chinese based sauce.
Wow that looks awesome. My husband has a similar smoker & we find that late in the cooking time it's difficult to hold temperature, he sometimes has to light a secondary fire in the grill itself (not the smoke box) to keep the temp going. He's considering one of the fancy electric models but I'm trying to talk him out of it. Also, if the pork doesn't pull it probably needed more time, wrapped in foil is what we usually do for the last hour or so
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I didn't seem to have a problem with the temperature, it just wouldn't pull. I've done this before and had luck.
I'll try the foil. My wife suggests bringing it into the oven for the last couple of hours for a slightly higher roast.
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The rub looks great! God it already looks cooked.
Wait ~ some people 'make' their own charcoal ... really?
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Yes if you burn wood with insufficient oxygen you get charcoal.
Kingsford charcoal exists because Henry Ford created a lot of scrap wood and needed to do something with it, so somebody, I assume named King, chared it pulverized it and bound it into briquets. You can buy natural charcoals but they are expensive.
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Looks good. I've had some pork that just wouldn't pull either. Sliced is good too. My husband has "seasoned" the outside of his offset smoker recently by rubbing on vegetable oil as he's using it. It's made a nice, black, waterproof coating. Hopefully the smoker will hold us a couple more years.
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Ummm, I hate to say this, because it looks great, but that ain't a Butt. The shoulder (ham) is from further down the arm, and doesn't pull well. But, I'll bet it tasted superb!
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It was labeled 'Boston butt' and cost 79 cents a pound. I wasn't arguing at that price.
It tastes great with the recomended mop and vinegar sauce. I'll try another one later in the summer (my wife and I both have supermarket cards under different last names so one to a family becomes two) with a different mop and perhaps a mustard sauce.
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At 79 cents a pound I would have bought a couple, but the picnic shoulder needs to be treated like a fresh ham (which it is - but from the front). I like to marinate it in coke!
For those who do not know, a Boston butt will not have skin, or a part of the leg. It's like beef chuck, with the "seven" bone still in it. Lots of internal fat that melts during slow cooking making it "pullable'.
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Well, I'll try for a Boston butt, but probably not this year. That one was 11 lbs as is it's twin in the freezer and there are only two of us.
A couple of years ago I registered for a pork butchery class at CIA, but they canceled the thing for lack of interest and haven't offered it again.
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how awesome, I love that smoker.
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Butt, shoulder, whatever. I'm impressed! Good lord, I love pork.
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Back when Costco carried trout, I would smoke trout just before breakfast and serve that instead of bacon.
Besides various cuts of pork, that has been used for smoked brisket, salmon and duck breast that I can think of. Not to mention a whole turkey and chickens.
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Great to see this blog. I have done some smoking of salmon, chicken, beef and pork. I am going to try a buffalo roast soon. I use a Bradlet 6-shelf digital smoker and love it. Look at http://tvws.blogspot.com for photos of my latest smoke salmon.
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sometimes has to light a secondary fire in the grill itself (not the smoke box) to keep the temp going. He's considering one of the fancy electric models but I'm trying to talk him out of it. Also, if the pork doesn't pull it probably needed more time..
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