I got my WSM on Tuesday, and figured I'd do the rookie thing and make a pork butt as my first attempt.
I bought a bone-in pork butt on Friday from a reputable local Mennonite butcher (guaranteed drug-free meat, which is a good thing), and it seems like it had already been trimmed of its fat cap and false cap (at least I couldn't find any as described on this site), and weighed in at just above 5 lbs.
The recipes of everything I put on it are all from Paul Kirk's Championship Barbecue book.
Friday night, I spread on some cheap mustard, and then plenty of "Scotty's Barbecue Rub", wrapped in plastic and refrigerated overnight. Using the Minion method to fire things up, I put the meat on at around 8:30am. I used a Taylor confection thermometer in the top vent to measure temp. With a few challenges in maintaining consistent temp (common newbie problem I would think), the thermometer was on average around 250 degrees, 225 at the lowest mark and 275 at the highest. At noon, I applied the "East North Carolina Lemon Mop" and turned the meat for the first time, and kept doing that about every two hours. I had to throw in some more unlit coals twice during the afternoon, and when I did that, I also threw some more woodchips in there - about a fistful every time.
At 3:30, I measured meat temp for the first time, and it was 160 degrees. It stayed there until 6:45, when I told my wife that I'd take the meat off no matter what at 7:30pm - I was way too hungry to wait any longer. Lo and behold, at 7:30 the temp was up at around 175-180 in various spots, so I figured it was done. On average, the lid temp throughout was 250, but I figure that is a bit on the low side, that resulted in 11 hours cooking time instead of 8-10.
I let it sit for half and hour in foil before pulling it, and it was very very tasty. I had the pork with sub style buns, and put on some "Jack Daniels' Barbecue Sauce" and "Bragging Rights Coleslaw", both from Paul Kirk's book. It was fantastic. So today, I brought in the leftovers for my workmates in the department to enjoy.
I'm gonna be q'ing every weekend now, you can bet on that.
-- Calle.
I bought a bone-in pork butt on Friday from a reputable local Mennonite butcher (guaranteed drug-free meat, which is a good thing), and it seems like it had already been trimmed of its fat cap and false cap (at least I couldn't find any as described on this site), and weighed in at just above 5 lbs.
The recipes of everything I put on it are all from Paul Kirk's Championship Barbecue book.
Friday night, I spread on some cheap mustard, and then plenty of "Scotty's Barbecue Rub", wrapped in plastic and refrigerated overnight. Using the Minion method to fire things up, I put the meat on at around 8:30am. I used a Taylor confection thermometer in the top vent to measure temp. With a few challenges in maintaining consistent temp (common newbie problem I would think), the thermometer was on average around 250 degrees, 225 at the lowest mark and 275 at the highest. At noon, I applied the "East North Carolina Lemon Mop" and turned the meat for the first time, and kept doing that about every two hours. I had to throw in some more unlit coals twice during the afternoon, and when I did that, I also threw some more woodchips in there - about a fistful every time.
At 3:30, I measured meat temp for the first time, and it was 160 degrees. It stayed there until 6:45, when I told my wife that I'd take the meat off no matter what at 7:30pm - I was way too hungry to wait any longer. Lo and behold, at 7:30 the temp was up at around 175-180 in various spots, so I figured it was done. On average, the lid temp throughout was 250, but I figure that is a bit on the low side, that resulted in 11 hours cooking time instead of 8-10.
I let it sit for half and hour in foil before pulling it, and it was very very tasty. I had the pork with sub style buns, and put on some "Jack Daniels' Barbecue Sauce" and "Bragging Rights Coleslaw", both from Paul Kirk's book. It was fantastic. So today, I brought in the leftovers for my workmates in the department to enjoy.
I'm gonna be q'ing every weekend now, you can bet on that.
-- Calle.