Josh O'Donn
TVWBB Member
Whelp, today was my first official cook on my new 22.5 WSM. I picked up 3 slabs of loin backs and 2 small butts.... For my first cook I am very happy with how everything went, other than the fact that the 4# butts took almost 9 hours to cook and my ribs were just slightly undercooked as well. Not sure why things took so long, I had my Maverick probe on the top grate between the 2 butts and was able to maintain between 235 an 250 no problem. I also brewed up a partigyle batch of homebrew while I was smoking... In case you're wondering, a partigyle brew results in two distinct beers from one batch of grains... The high-gravity (high sugar) first runnings are the first batch, and then the grains are washed with another batch of water, and those lower gravity second runnings make the second batch. First batch will be much higher alcohol than the second batch. Needless to say things got pretty chaotic, I will probably not smoke and brew a partigyle again... At one point I was trying to get rub on the ribs, cool the 1st runnings after completing the boil, and watching the 2nd runnings to prevent a boil over.
OH, and in case you are wondering, the aroma of beer brewing mixed with smoking meat is incredible.
Here are some photos:
This was the view from my garage looking out... 2 batches of beer boiling away and the WSM smoking away. Several neighbors invited themselves over for dinner, unfortunately for them I didn't reciprocate haha

I forgot to take photos of the ribs... Here are the finished butts pre-pulling

And here is a big bowl of deliciousness

I will also be trying a sauce experiment tomorrow night... I took a half gallon of the 1st runnings from my homebrew and reduced it down to 2 cups... I am going to use this in place of molasses... The final reduced product is not as thick as molasses, but it is wonderfully sweet and has awesome roasty notes that I think will be really good in a sauce. I will post back the sauce results in a day or two!
OH, and in case you are wondering, the aroma of beer brewing mixed with smoking meat is incredible.
Here are some photos:
This was the view from my garage looking out... 2 batches of beer boiling away and the WSM smoking away. Several neighbors invited themselves over for dinner, unfortunately for them I didn't reciprocate haha

I forgot to take photos of the ribs... Here are the finished butts pre-pulling

And here is a big bowl of deliciousness

I will also be trying a sauce experiment tomorrow night... I took a half gallon of the 1st runnings from my homebrew and reduced it down to 2 cups... I am going to use this in place of molasses... The final reduced product is not as thick as molasses, but it is wonderfully sweet and has awesome roasty notes that I think will be really good in a sauce. I will post back the sauce results in a day or two!