Back to water? Probably!


 
J

Jerry Pollard

TVWBB Super Fan
Purchased a 14" clay pot base at HD on Sat. (yesterday). A 9 lb PB to cook sat nite.
Foiled pan, foiled clay pot, nice fit.
Fired up WSM about 8 pm. Full ring of Rancher,
three tennis ball size hickory pieces.
Minion method, used 14 briquets to start.
Temp started up after about 10 minutes.
at 220 started closing vents,put butt on top grate. Temp continued to climb. Shut all bottom vents, top 100 per cent open. Temp continued to 280 at grate, 285 at grate with all vents closed. Had a therm mod on top of lid, 305 - 310. Just purchased and first use for ET-73, worked "great". Temps stayed at 280 to 285 at grate. 11:30 pm retired to bed with my ET-73 on night stand. at 1 am temp still high at 285.
Meat temp 180 at 8 a.m. about 9:30 came up to 190. Pulled butt off and foiled and put in cooler. Ate about 12:20 pm. Meat was very "mushy" overcooked i guess. I did not have this problem using the stock water pan. Worst butt yet, after about 6 butt cooks on my wsm.
ANY suggestions, or what did i do wrong?
 
a few things i see you did wrong. put only 10 lit briquettes on and put don't wait to put the meat on. as soon as you put the middle section on add the meat. and i close all but 1 vent at 190 and when it gets to 220 i close that one almost all the way. sometimes i have to open it a bit if temp starts to fall, but usually not. you waited too long to start throttling down and the coals were already going strong i think. with the clay base you have to stop the rise in temp early on or you will battle high temps all night.
 
Hey Jerry, been there done that. My first MM, clay saucer mod smoke I started with 20 lit, what a nightmare that was trying to keep the temp down, I actually started throwing ice on my clay pot (not thinking that it might crack it). I agree with Tony, I start my MM smokes with as few as 8 lit coals and I shut down all my bottom vents when I hit 200 at the grate . . . I think my WSM has a small air leak though so your unit may preform more like Tony's.

I defer to the pros on why your meat was "mushy."

It gets better, trust me.
 
FWIW, it takes anywhere from 30-60 minutes for mine to get from 190 to 220 with that 1 vent open. but when it gets to 220 and i close it off it usually will creep up to 225 and sit there all night with maybe a 5 degree variance either way. the gradual increase in temp is what you are looking for with the clay saucer so your coals don't get too hot.
 
Originally posted by Jerry Pollard:
about 9:30 came up to 190. Pulled butt off and foiled and put in cooler. Ate about 12:20 pm. Meat was very "mushy" overcooked i guess. I did not have this problem using the stock water pan. Worst butt yet, after about 6 butt cooks on my wsm.
ANY suggestions, or what did i do wrong?
Click to expand...
Jerry, 190 is not over cooked at all, I like to take mine to 200 if I have the time to render out as much fat as possible. High temps have nothing to do with the texture i.e. "mushy" I cook pork in the oven at 350 and it's not mushy, but it does still contain alot of fat because of the higher temp, but I wouldn't call it mushy. Sure it was 190 in the center? Almost sounds like it might have been undercooked, just asking. Only 3 hrs in foil so that's not all that long. I left my butts in the foil from 6:30AM till 12 noon this past Thursday when I took 2 to work with me. They were fine. My guess would be a overly fatty butt and due to the high temps and quick cooking alot of the fat didn't get rendered out and might have gave it a slighlty "mushy" texture. Or maybe just a bad piece of meat? I haven't used water in over 4 years, don't give up yet.
 
The PB did seem to have a "lot" of fat.
I noticed this when i purchased it. Might have been just the meat. It was at 190 according to my new ET-73. I'll give it another try. But the temps did seem too high,
Thanks guys for the help.
Jerry
 
Originally posted by Jerry Pollard:
The PB did seem to have a "lot" of fat.
I noticed this when i purchased it. Might have been just the meat. It was at 190 according to my new ET-73. I'll give it another try. But the temps did seem too high,
Thanks guys for the help.
Jerry
Click to expand...

Jerry, why not test your thermometer using ice cold water and see if you get a temp. close to 32 degrees, you never know. Also, I don't know about you, but whenever I feel like I am having a bad cook (ie. temps are unstable, cook going much faster or slower then anticipated), the food always turns out much worse than what it actually is. I'll be telling myself after a long day of cooking that the food is horrible when in actuality, I am receiving nothing but praises from my guests. Did everyone else feel the pork came out mushy?
 
I think as the cook, we are all over critical of our food, I know I do the same thing.
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