My biggest smoke ever!


 
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Lee Morris

TVWBB Fan
Thought about posting this on the Smoke Day board, since I was smoking on Smoke Day, but it was much more than that, so I put it here.

I'm not sure what got into me, but I did 5 different smokes this weekend. Lit the coals for the first one at 11:45 pm on Friday and pulled the last meat off the smoker at 11:15 am today. Almost got 60 continuous hours! Had both the 18" and 22" going much of the time.

Cook #1 was for friends at our house on Saturday evening. Did a big 10+ pound butt and 3 racks of St Louis spares.

Cook #2 was to feed the nurses in my unit at the hospital on Sunday. Did 2 butts and 3 racks of full spares.

Cook #3 was a repeat of #2. The Monday nurses were going to be most upset if they didn't get fed since they were actually working the holiday. Again 2 butts and 3 spares.

Cook #4 was to prepare a bunch of BBQ for our upcoming family beach trip next month. Instead of going out to dinner every night of vacation, each part of the family has one night that they are in charge of. My night is, of course, BBQ. Cooked butts and 3 St Louis spares.

Cook #5 was my first attempt at a chuck roll (almost). I did a small 4 or 5 pound chuck roast a while back and the wife loved using it in fajitas and in a casserole she made. So this time I got the guys at Costco to cut a chuck roll in half for me. Weighed 13.7 pounds!

Almost everything turned out perfectly!! One set of the full spares got a little crispy on one edge because it barely fit in the smoker. Other than that, it was just right! I really had fun, but I have to say, by the time I pulled that chuck roll today, I was pretty tired of messing with meat. Not to mention that I probably washed dishes for 2+ hours over the weekend.

Totals: 63.1 pounds of butt, 47.3 pounds of spares, and 13.7 pounds of beef. 124.1 total pounds!!!

Didn't get many pics, but here are a few.

My set up for the weekend. Did I mention it rained half the time?




One set of the St Louis spares.




A couple of the butts. One pulled, one not.




Two big pans of pulled beef. That was a big hunk of meat!


 
Lee:

Kudos to your dedication! Looks like everything turned out excellent.

Two things:

1) How many times did you need to refuel each smoker for the 60+ hrs time?

2) How did you control your brew consumption to stay coherent for such a long cook time?
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Mitch,

Re-fueling was done pretty much like a normal cook since I tried to stagger all the cooks as much as possible. The only cooks that were exactly back to back on the same smoker were the cook for the beach and the chuck roll. I only had about 20-25 burning coals left at the end of the beach cook so I scooped them out and set them aside in my starter chimney and used them for a fresh minion start for the final cook. Worked out perectly!

On that note, here's my plug for Rancher charcoal. I cooked all those butts and the chuck with almost no need for re-fueling. That stuff burns forever!

As for your second point, the two planned trips to the workplace kept me in check. Couldn't really deliver food to my nurses with a good buzz going
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Two questions:

1. I am assuming those are some sort of automatic temp control devices on the bottoms of your smokers? What type are they and how do you like them?

2. What is the cooler for? It looks like there are wires going into it.
 
Ryan,

Those are both DigiQ II temperature control systems from BBQ Guru. And I absolutely love them. I cooked on the 18.5 inch for well over a year without it and learned plenty about temp control. As you know, the WSM is one of the best there is at "set it and forget it". But it sure makes leaving the cooker alone for long periods much nicer when you know that nothing can interfere with your temps. There are other models as well...Stoker most notably. Look around on the board and you will find plenty of info.

I have a battery pack for the blowers in the cooler. Kept it in there because of all the rain. It says its water resistant, but better safe than sorry.
 
Your my hero! Not to mention that spread is incredible. Two smokers, two charcoals, a gasser, I gotta get my wife on board!
 
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