Larry Boyd
New member
Got my shiny new 18.5 WSM this week and I'm breaking her in this weekend. Started off with a mesquite chicken that turned out nicely. Cooked it about a 1/2 hour too long and the white meat was a little drier than I would like it to ultimately be but it was still good and I was pleased with the results.
This morning it's on to some pork butts. Was initially just going to cook one but the relatives in the area got wind of the cook and now I have to do two.
And here we go! I have two 5 lb bone-in pork butts, nicely matched size as well as weight. I tied them both to make the sizes even more closely matched. Made my rub yesterday and applied it about 3:00PM and shoved them in the fridge. I use a homemade rub which is essentially equal parts ground black pepper, brown sugar, and paprika, with smaller quantities of salt, cayenne, cumin, crushed red pepper, and a bit of garlic powder.
I use the same rub to make my sauce. I grew up in central NC so the sauce is of course vinegar based. I use a 3 to one mix of cider vinegar to white vinegar, mix in the rub over low heat, add some more crushed red pepper and throw in some Texas Pete to add a little heat to it. I like Texas Pete's flavor and it's hard to put so much in that the sauce is too hot for the folks that like a milder sauce. A very small amount of ketchup is added to thicken the sauce just a little. Once it's well blended I split the sauce into 3 parts. One is kept as it is, the second gets some additional ketchup to thicken it up even more for the unswashed that need a thicker sauce and the third gets the "atomic" treatment. A habernero (or two depending on how much is being made) liquified in the blender, and some tabasco for flavor is added. I don't eat it but I'm told it's pretty good.
On to the cooking. Started about 4:00am. Still had some hot coals in the cooker from yesterdays chicken so I didn't have to use the chimney. I'm using K Comp. I was going to try and do this using the MM but since the coals were already hot in the smoker, I instead moved them into a pile in the center, then filled in the ring with charcoal around them. This should provide the same effect as the normal MM and so far so good. I added three small hickory chunks into the unlit charcoal and one bigger chunk into the center on top of the hot coals. Added boiling water to the water pan, put both butts on the top rack and closed her up.
Things going well so far. Have found one thing that I have to be careful about. The cooker temp spiked from about 220-230 in a very short time when the sun came up. The thermometer was faced directly into the teeth of the sun this morning to make it easy for me to read without having to step out on the deck. I spun the lid around 180 and the temp dropped back down to 220 in about 15 minutes. Anyone else observed this with their cookers? Never had an issue with that on my old grill I used for this kind of thing, but it the thermometer on it was much more vertical and didn't take that perpendicular sunshine on it like the one on the smoker.
This morning it's on to some pork butts. Was initially just going to cook one but the relatives in the area got wind of the cook and now I have to do two.
And here we go! I have two 5 lb bone-in pork butts, nicely matched size as well as weight. I tied them both to make the sizes even more closely matched. Made my rub yesterday and applied it about 3:00PM and shoved them in the fridge. I use a homemade rub which is essentially equal parts ground black pepper, brown sugar, and paprika, with smaller quantities of salt, cayenne, cumin, crushed red pepper, and a bit of garlic powder.
I use the same rub to make my sauce. I grew up in central NC so the sauce is of course vinegar based. I use a 3 to one mix of cider vinegar to white vinegar, mix in the rub over low heat, add some more crushed red pepper and throw in some Texas Pete to add a little heat to it. I like Texas Pete's flavor and it's hard to put so much in that the sauce is too hot for the folks that like a milder sauce. A very small amount of ketchup is added to thicken the sauce just a little. Once it's well blended I split the sauce into 3 parts. One is kept as it is, the second gets some additional ketchup to thicken it up even more for the unswashed that need a thicker sauce and the third gets the "atomic" treatment. A habernero (or two depending on how much is being made) liquified in the blender, and some tabasco for flavor is added. I don't eat it but I'm told it's pretty good.
On to the cooking. Started about 4:00am. Still had some hot coals in the cooker from yesterdays chicken so I didn't have to use the chimney. I'm using K Comp. I was going to try and do this using the MM but since the coals were already hot in the smoker, I instead moved them into a pile in the center, then filled in the ring with charcoal around them. This should provide the same effect as the normal MM and so far so good. I added three small hickory chunks into the unlit charcoal and one bigger chunk into the center on top of the hot coals. Added boiling water to the water pan, put both butts on the top rack and closed her up.
Things going well so far. Have found one thing that I have to be careful about. The cooker temp spiked from about 220-230 in a very short time when the sun came up. The thermometer was faced directly into the teeth of the sun this morning to make it easy for me to read without having to step out on the deck. I spun the lid around 180 and the temp dropped back down to 220 in about 15 minutes. Anyone else observed this with their cookers? Never had an issue with that on my old grill I used for this kind of thing, but it the thermometer on it was much more vertical and didn't take that perpendicular sunshine on it like the one on the smoker.
