My wife and I have been talking about having her family (all 18 of us) over for a BBQ for some time now. Here is our brief journey in pictures.
An 7 1/2lb bone in butt, slightly trimmed and seasoned with some leftover Oakridge Secret Weapon and some Team Sweet Mama's Kansas City Rub from a local place. 18" WSM was lit at 05:00 and the butt went on at 06:00 with a few leftover pieces of apple and a couple of hickory for smoke.
A 14lb packer from Walmart, untrimmed (1st pic), trimmed (2nd pic), and seasoned with Oakridge Black Ops. Brisket went on the 22" around 10:00, high heat, foil under the ends to try to prevent it from getting crusty, and with cherry and hickory for smoke.
In the meantime, we slapped together some ABTs and some baked beans from a recipe on this site (Kev's Harvest Baked Beans - forgot to drain the beans first, they were a little soupy but still very good).
The beans went on under the butt. After a while I was losing heat so I ended up finishing them in the oven. The ABTs went on with the brisket. After the brisket came off and went into the cooler the WSM started losing some heat. I ended up firing up a kettle and moving the ABTs to it to finish. It's nice having some grills in reserve.
Here's the setup.
The in-laws recently bought a Hawaiian ice business (think snow cone but with shaved ice) so they brought their small unit over for the kiddos. My son decided to hang out on the trailer for first dibs.
Here's the brisket, shortly before going into a foil pan. I put it in the pan when it hit 175 and back on the smoker for a few hours until it was like butter.
Here is the butt at some point during the cook. It wasn't moving along fast enough so I ended up wrapping it, which I don't tend to do very often. Not sure if having been frozen changes its texture, but this one just acted differently than other "fresh" butts I've smoked.
<to be continued>
An 7 1/2lb bone in butt, slightly trimmed and seasoned with some leftover Oakridge Secret Weapon and some Team Sweet Mama's Kansas City Rub from a local place. 18" WSM was lit at 05:00 and the butt went on at 06:00 with a few leftover pieces of apple and a couple of hickory for smoke.

A 14lb packer from Walmart, untrimmed (1st pic), trimmed (2nd pic), and seasoned with Oakridge Black Ops. Brisket went on the 22" around 10:00, high heat, foil under the ends to try to prevent it from getting crusty, and with cherry and hickory for smoke.


In the meantime, we slapped together some ABTs and some baked beans from a recipe on this site (Kev's Harvest Baked Beans - forgot to drain the beans first, they were a little soupy but still very good).



The beans went on under the butt. After a while I was losing heat so I ended up finishing them in the oven. The ABTs went on with the brisket. After the brisket came off and went into the cooler the WSM started losing some heat. I ended up firing up a kettle and moving the ABTs to it to finish. It's nice having some grills in reserve.
Here's the setup.

The in-laws recently bought a Hawaiian ice business (think snow cone but with shaved ice) so they brought their small unit over for the kiddos. My son decided to hang out on the trailer for first dibs.

Here's the brisket, shortly before going into a foil pan. I put it in the pan when it hit 175 and back on the smoker for a few hours until it was like butter.

Here is the butt at some point during the cook. It wasn't moving along fast enough so I ended up wrapping it, which I don't tend to do very often. Not sure if having been frozen changes its texture, but this one just acted differently than other "fresh" butts I've smoked.

<to be continued>
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