Dan C. FL
TVWBB Pro
A friend of mine is really darn good at CrossFit. It seems like every year she goes to the CrossFit Games. This year was no different. One of the traditions for Games athletes is to have a fundraiser to help them defray the costs of going to Wisconsin for a week to compete. My friend always does a workout and has a raffle. Sometimes, she does sandwiches of some sort. When I found out that she was going again, I offered to make pulled pork for the fundraiser. A couple of weeks ago, we got together and came up with the plan for the event. I realized that I had enough time to make some bacon for the raffle too, so I offered that up as well. The fundraiser was this past weekend. Here's the story and some pics (not as many as I should have taken, but enough to make it photo gallery acceptable 
).
I took Thursday and Friday off of work because it has been dead at work and I wanted to not feel rushed. So, I planned the bacon smoke for Thursday so that I could refrigerate it overnight and slice it cold. The bacon had a week's time to cure. Just a standard brown sugar, salt, and pepper cure. I like it simple.
Set up the cooker in the driveway under my canopy tent. It was only forty thousand degrees. Not exactly conducive to a cool smoke.
Ok, bad image, but managed to keep a nice cool sub-130* cook temp for 5 hours. I sat in the A/C peeking at my Smoke remote on occasion.
After about 6 hours or so on the smoker, it was done.
I put it up and goofed off for the rest of Thursday night and most of Friday. When I got home, I realized that I didn't do math very well in my head and wasn't sure that I allowed myself enough time if the Boston Butt cook went awry. I probably had about 15 hours until I would need to leave the house in order to deliver at the promised time. I panicked a little and posted here and on Twitter about whether cooking 3 butts in my 18.5" was going to take a lot more time. Luckily, Len, Jerry, and Dustin all responded that the cook time should be about the same. But, I was still feeling a little time-crunched. So, I hurriedly set up my tent and smoker in the backyard (I didn't want to leave my garage door up all night long while I was sleeping). Got the 3 10 lbs. butts rubbed and ready and the charcoal lit and on the smoker by about 7 p.m.
The fellas had warned me that fuel consumption and heat sink with all of that meat might be an issue. So, per the advice, I loaded the water bowl only about half full. The smoker came quickly up to 215* and then kinda struggled to get much higher than that for the first 3 hours or so. But, we were in the ball park, so I didn't panic...just let the smoker cruise with all the vents wide open. I had the biggest of the three butts on the bottom rack with the ThermoPro TP-08 minding that grate and hunk of pork and the Smoke monitoring the smallest of the 3 butts on the top grate and the top grate temperature. My top rack temp was consistently 30-40 degrees colder than the bottom rack, which I attributed to being so close to all that meat.
While the butt was going, I sliced the bacon and packaged it.
After several beers, I decided that I wanted to sleep. I snuck a peak at the level of the coals and decided that they were a little lower than I'd want while I was napping. So, I added about 50 more coals to the ring and set the alarm on my phone to 6:45 a.m.
When my phone woke me up, I looked and saw that the grate temps were a little on the high side...probably close to 280 or so. The meats were also really close to the target temp of 195*. I went out and added some water to the water bowl which, by that point, was just about dry. The temp dropped back down to 260-ish. By the time I noticed that the grate temp was back down closer to where I wanted it, I noticed that the bigger butt on the bottom was done. So, I grabbed it and pulled it off.
I goofed around a little and pulled the second and third one off when they hit 195*. That didn't take more than another 15 minutes or so. Here's the last butt:
I had finished a little earlier than planned, so I put the butts in the oven on warm and drank a cup of coffee and showered. I managed to get to the gym a few minutes early and get set up. I pulled the butts as needed. They turned out well and got lots of compliments. I wound up with an entire extra butt (long story short, the butts they had were smaller than I expected, so I just got a 3rd butt rather than being left short-handed), so I took it home and ate lunch and gave a pound or so of it to my neighbor. He's always asking what I'm cooking and when can he try some. No report back from him as of yet, just haven't seen him.
It was by far my largest cook to date. I was really surprised how well it went. Usually, it takes me about 13 hours to do one butt of this size. All 3 (totally of 30 lbs.) took almost the exact same time. Other than the beer-induced charcoal addition, I didn't add any more coals. When I took it apart to clean and move it, there was still enough coal in there that I might not have needed to add any but that would've been cutting it close. Anyways, I'd call it a successful first big cook!!
). I took Thursday and Friday off of work because it has been dead at work and I wanted to not feel rushed. So, I planned the bacon smoke for Thursday so that I could refrigerate it overnight and slice it cold. The bacon had a week's time to cure. Just a standard brown sugar, salt, and pepper cure. I like it simple.
Set up the cooker in the driveway under my canopy tent. It was only forty thousand degrees. Not exactly conducive to a cool smoke.
Ok, bad image, but managed to keep a nice cool sub-130* cook temp for 5 hours. I sat in the A/C peeking at my Smoke remote on occasion.
After about 6 hours or so on the smoker, it was done.
I put it up and goofed off for the rest of Thursday night and most of Friday. When I got home, I realized that I didn't do math very well in my head and wasn't sure that I allowed myself enough time if the Boston Butt cook went awry. I probably had about 15 hours until I would need to leave the house in order to deliver at the promised time. I panicked a little and posted here and on Twitter about whether cooking 3 butts in my 18.5" was going to take a lot more time. Luckily, Len, Jerry, and Dustin all responded that the cook time should be about the same. But, I was still feeling a little time-crunched. So, I hurriedly set up my tent and smoker in the backyard (I didn't want to leave my garage door up all night long while I was sleeping). Got the 3 10 lbs. butts rubbed and ready and the charcoal lit and on the smoker by about 7 p.m.
The fellas had warned me that fuel consumption and heat sink with all of that meat might be an issue. So, per the advice, I loaded the water bowl only about half full. The smoker came quickly up to 215* and then kinda struggled to get much higher than that for the first 3 hours or so. But, we were in the ball park, so I didn't panic...just let the smoker cruise with all the vents wide open. I had the biggest of the three butts on the bottom rack with the ThermoPro TP-08 minding that grate and hunk of pork and the Smoke monitoring the smallest of the 3 butts on the top grate and the top grate temperature. My top rack temp was consistently 30-40 degrees colder than the bottom rack, which I attributed to being so close to all that meat.
While the butt was going, I sliced the bacon and packaged it.
After several beers, I decided that I wanted to sleep. I snuck a peak at the level of the coals and decided that they were a little lower than I'd want while I was napping. So, I added about 50 more coals to the ring and set the alarm on my phone to 6:45 a.m.
When my phone woke me up, I looked and saw that the grate temps were a little on the high side...probably close to 280 or so. The meats were also really close to the target temp of 195*. I went out and added some water to the water bowl which, by that point, was just about dry. The temp dropped back down to 260-ish. By the time I noticed that the grate temp was back down closer to where I wanted it, I noticed that the bigger butt on the bottom was done. So, I grabbed it and pulled it off.
I goofed around a little and pulled the second and third one off when they hit 195*. That didn't take more than another 15 minutes or so. Here's the last butt:
I had finished a little earlier than planned, so I put the butts in the oven on warm and drank a cup of coffee and showered. I managed to get to the gym a few minutes early and get set up. I pulled the butts as needed. They turned out well and got lots of compliments. I wound up with an entire extra butt (long story short, the butts they had were smaller than I expected, so I just got a 3rd butt rather than being left short-handed), so I took it home and ate lunch and gave a pound or so of it to my neighbor. He's always asking what I'm cooking and when can he try some. No report back from him as of yet, just haven't seen him.
It was by far my largest cook to date. I was really surprised how well it went. Usually, it takes me about 13 hours to do one butt of this size. All 3 (totally of 30 lbs.) took almost the exact same time. Other than the beer-induced charcoal addition, I didn't add any more coals. When I took it apart to clean and move it, there was still enough coal in there that I might not have needed to add any but that would've been cutting it close. Anyways, I'd call it a successful first big cook!!
