Noob Bros 1st Smoke Journey


 
Carl_S_901

Carl_S_901

TVWBB Fan
Brand new here and thought I would share the experience similar to other threads I have seen here.

Here is where we are so far:

1. WSM 22.5, chimney, etc. have arrived but are still in boxes.

2. I bought and read most of the Low n Slow book by Gary W.

3. Read a lot on this site.

The Plan:

Smoke pork butts this Saturday.

Went here at lunch time today:
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Picked up Apple, Oak, Hickory, and Cherry blocks. Plan to do 3-3-1 without cherry on this smoke.

They had plenty of fruit/smoke wood:

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Tomorrow my brother and I will get meat, foil, charcoal and rub ingredients and we should have what we need.

More photos in future posts in this thread. :)
 
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OK. Here is what we think we know and want to do so far:

1. Use Kingsford Blue Bag charcoal (Lump may be better but we don't want to be fire sitting at this point)
2. Use the Minion Method for lighting it off (seen instructions here)
3. Use 3 Oak, 3 Apple, and 1 Hickory block (4 in middle of charcoal and 3 at the top)
4. Foil only the bottom of the pan (seen the video here)
5. Use water
6. Not injecting this time out but definitely rubbing
7. Only using the lid thermometer until cooking is done - not sweating anything between 200ish and 275ish
8. Top vent open always - bottom vents to 1/2 after (?? see below) it is up to temp

Here is some of the things we still need to figure out:

1. Rub - We are starting with the basics (and will customize) but definitely want mucho bark. What gives us the best chance of that?
2. Turn or no turn of the butts at some point ?
3. Trimmed fat side up or down?
4. Yellow mustard on butts before rub or no ?
5. After it is up to temp we should set the bottom vents to ??? 1/2, 1/3 open ?


Thoughts on these ?
 
Carl,

These are just my answers, but there are many others for sure.
1) When I started I tried many, many rubs with varying successes, but now I've settled on a rub from Weber's Big Book of Grilling:

1 T Paprika
1 T firmly packed light brown sugar
1 1/2 t chili powder
1 1/2 t ground cumin
1 t coarsely ground black pepper
1 t kosher salt
1/2 t cayenne

I use at least that much for one 7 lb butt, but we like lots of rub so I make it in BIG batches. The bark is outstanding with this rub.

2) I've never turned the butts, but when I do so many I have to use the top and bottom racks (4 on my 18 in WSM) then I rotate them top to bottom sometime in the middle of the cook.
3) I put fat side down to preserve more bark, which tends to pull off the bottom on the grate.
4) I slather with mustard every time before rubbing. We just like it that way.
5) Don't think of vent selection as a given; simply catch the temp on the way up and before it gets to your desired degree begin closing vents a little. I usually smoke ribs and butts around 250 (and use no water but a clay saucer), so I start with all of the vents open, and around 200 I close all three about 1/2 way, and then sneak up on my temp. Give each adjustment 15 or 20 minutes to even out, and don't be afraid to close a little more or open one or two a little if need be. Water will slow down your temp rise so the time may take a little longer to settle at a temp and more baby sitting up to that point. It's just key, important, best to catch temps on the way up if you have a desired temp or range. I now expect to hit my general target within 45 minutes at the absolute latest; if it takes me longer than that something is seriously wrong.

One observation: that seems like a heck of a lot of smoke wood. I use 2 baseball size chunks of pecan and one or two apple chunks and have more than enough smoke flavor. Just a thought.

Good luck on your efforts and be forgiving of yourself. Trust me, the butts will be.
 
Carl_S_901 said:
1. Rub - We are starting with the basics (and will customize) but definitely want mucho bark. What gives us the best chance of that?
2. Turn or no turn of the butts at some point ?
3. Trimmed fat side up or down?
4. Yellow mustard on butts before rub or no ?
5. After it is up to temp we should set the bottom vents to ??? 1/2, 1/3 open ?
Click to expand...
Congratulations on finding all the most contentious questions in Q! :)

1. Don't foil if you want mucho bark. Sugar in your rub also helps.
2. Everybody has their own opinion. I don't turn.
3. Everybody has their own opinion. I go fat side up, but I don't think it matters. My next cook I'm just taking the fat cap all the way off, it worked great for me for briskets so I'm going to try with pork too.
4. Everybody has their own opinion. I use yellow mustard to make more rub stick.
5. Set them to whatever gets the temp you want. When my grate temp hits 200 I set them about 1/4-1/3 open and work from there. Maybe you'll have them all 1/4 open. Maybe you'll have 2 close and 1 1/4 open. Maybe you'll need to close down the top vent some too. It all depends on your smoker, the weather, the outside air temp, how much meat you have loaded, whether you used water, how tightly packed your coals are, etc., etc.
 
Costco mostly a bust. Only had boneless butts, few spices, and no regular blue bag charcoal. Picked up 3 items:
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More shopping to do. Frog stranglin' rain all day today so not pleasant. :)
 
Hey bud , I've been enjoying your post so far.you are getting all good advice here , which I would expect. My 2 cents is this: Don't be afraid of a boneless butt , they cook up fine. Hope you enjoy that cook. Looking forward to more pix. :wsm:
 
I second that. I love the boneless butts from Costco more room for rub. I also like the K COmp charcoal from their but I picked it up while it was on sale. Good luck with your hunting.
 
Got Meat!

Went to my local meat market and they only had one set of bone-in, but had a lot of boneless. Had seen Frank's reply and ended up getting boneless.

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I don't need to tie these with string ot anything, right?
 
Don't be afraid to take the fat cap off (most of it at least). If you want mucho bark, this will get you an extra side barked up. I did this on my last cook and there was no noticeable difference in taste or moisture from normal. I've never used mustard to keep the rub on... mine's very similar to what T Bounds has above.

I've done boneless from Costco. They are just fine. They cook faster, of course, and one is usually a couple pounds smaller than the other. You might need to tie the small one to keep it together.

As for temps, when the lid temp hits 190-200 I throttle the bottom vents down to 25%ish open. Unless the temp nosedives or really spikes, I've never had to adjust.

My only other advise on the temp thing is watch it in 15-20 min intervals your first couple of cooks. You'll figure out how your temp fluctuates. Don't go messing with the vents like crazy over a few degrees... butts are pretty forgiving.
 
Carl_S_901 said:
Got Meat!

Went to my local meat market and they only had one set of bone-in, but had a lot of boneless. Had seen Frank's reply and ended up getting boneless.




I don't need to tie these with string ot anything, right?
Click to expand...

Well , if it seems like it wants to fall apart or spread eagle all over the rack , you could tie it up with a little butchers twine , but if it seems like its going to hang together ok , you could skip it....esp If you smoke it in an aluminum pan ( which is how I do it....saves a lot of nice drippings that you can add to your finishing sauce)
 
No fat cap equal better bark. I trim all 0f it off most everything. Marbled fat is good, outside fat is well, not good IMHO.......................d
 
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Only thing I haven't seen mentioned is to make sure you use hot water in the pan if your going to use water.
 
Time to get the WSM out of the box and put together, but first a detour to the garage for

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while I have my brother Dale carry all the stuff in from the vehicle.

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:D
 
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