shoulder trouble

[Tom Raveret]

Its 3:00 am I started 15lbs of shoulder in the WSM at 9:00am yesterday and been having a heck of a time getting these shoulders to get to 195 I was being careful to get the low and slow thing down so my target temp range has been 225 to 250. I've had some spikes and then overcorrected down to 200 a few times but in my defense it is windy and been raining on and off all day. I added cold briquettes a couple of times and now I finally dumped the ash and refueled the whole thing here at 3:00 am. The last three hours are at 159 degrees now I'm up to 165 but I wasn't planning on spending all night up like this but at this point who wants to scrap this investment in time. I had one of the 7.5 lb shoulders split in two(on the bottom rack) and one 7.5 on the top.

Here are my key learnings so far:

1) I need to convert to the Minion method for firing charcoal and start this in the middle of the night.

2) I must be losing heat to the wind (I don't think the rain would really have that much impact) rain so the smoker needs to be moved to a more sheltered location

Does anyone else have any thoughts as to why it is taking sooo dang long to get to the magic 195 degree level? I know we have to be partient but is this longer than it should take??

I'm tempted to crank it to get there but am afraid letting the vents wide open would give me shoe leather instead of Tasty "pig candy"

Thanks for your ideas

 

[Dave Estrem (Savory Dave)]

Hi Tom:

This is when I wish Weber would make a bigger issue of the fact that we're here 24/7, and you could have called me (I'm here from 11M to 7:30 AM) for some quick tips.

First of all let me tell you that all of the points you made are correct. The Minion method is an excellent way of maintaining consistent heat. Also, rain will not affect the heat nearly as much as the wind will. A wind block is a great idea.

You'll get plenty of more good advice from the other folks on this board, but keep reading this post for some moral support from my most recent pork butt experience.

Originally I was just going to tell Chris this story, and ask him to keep it "between us" - but after reading your post tonight I decided to spill the beans.

My boss Mark (great guy) wanted to treat our department to lunch yesterday, so he got all the ingredients together for "Pulled pork sandwiches", and left me an e-mail asking that I put the meat on the grill at 6:AM. I asked the 2nd shift supervisor when Mark planned on serving the sandwiches, and she said at lunch time. I said, "What, lunch on Friday?" and she said, "No, lunch Thursday" I told her that 15 Lbs. of pork shoulder are gonna need way more than 4-5 hours to finish, but she said I was wrong and that she'd had it before and it was great in just 4-5 hours. Then she pointed out the door to a Genesis Platinum that was in our patio area. My heart sank. They were going to take all that beautiful meat and "force" it to get done in just a few hours. Had I known of the plans, I would have come into work early to get the meat started for at least a 15 hour smoke.

Anyway, the long and the short of it was that the meat did get "done", but tasted more like what I'd guess Kibbles n Bits is like than the excellent results I've gotten each time with the Bullet.

Every year I've done a smoked, brined turkey for our department at Thanksgiving time. This year I may need to add a pork butt to the smoker to show these folks what it "should" taste like. I just need to make sure I don't show up the boss.

 

[Mike Rockwood]

Tom,

When was the last time you did an accuracy check on your thermometers? Perhaps everything is working as you planned it to, but technology has let you down? To check, place the probe(s) into boiling water and see if they are reading close to 212*.

That's my 2 coppers.

 

[Jim Minion]

At the temps you are cooking a 15 pound shoulder can take aprox 30 hours, so your not out of the time frame that you setup.
Blocking the wind and pit temps of 250 to 270?
would have move the cook along.
If you go this way again starting in the afternoon to finish the in time for the next evening's meal may have let you get some sleep but you would need to refuel in that cook sometime.
I feel for you brother.
Jim

 

[Tom Raveret]

It turned out good but not great. Thats good barebeque is better than alot of other great things in life so I am learning from this. At 5:00 am I packed it up and pulled (or for alot of it Chopped) some pork. Its not as sweet or moist as I would have liked it but it is still very tasty. (I spiced this batch up a bit using half sharp paprika and 1.5x cayenne) I was trying to A/B compare the results between 1 7.5 lb roast and 2 3.75 lbs roasts . (I've posted before about this and wanted to just play a little) The pork I was using was the tumbled kind but for .88/lb its enough of a deal to look past the salt water (the other stuff I cant find in Milwaukee for less than 1.80 a lb)

On the thermometer issues I may have discovered something. I was using a Taylor knock off of the Polder, A taylor digital instaread, and the Williams and Sonoma remote display unit(made by Maverick I think as it says Maverick on the back) I am going to have to do some testing but I believe the Maverick probe and the Poulder probes may be incompatable. As I was cooking I started with the probe for the Maverick in a potatoe to monitor grill temprature from inside the house (Considering the wonderful rain and wind this invention is soooo worth its weight in gold). I did it this way throughout most of the cook with the Taylor/Polder knock off in the meat checking it every half hour or so. I was concerned that the readings might not be right at 4:00 am so I tried to switch plugging in the probes to get a meat temp inside the house and the meat temp read 30 degrees below what I was getting on the Maverick. This is only preliminary and I will do some more testing as I have about 5 probes around here and may have inadvertently have used the worng one in the Maverick to begin with. The Taylor instaread digital confirmed that my meat was around 170 degrees when I pulled it off as did the way most of it pulled but some of the section of the meat in both the big roast and the smaller one seemed like the collagen had in fact broken down where other parts of it seemed a bit tough and dry. Oh well when the going gets rough just add sauce!!! Good sauce at that as I brought back some of the sauce I judged at the royal that was my second favorite called Holy smoke (also marketed as Fat Bastard's hawgwash...I'll leave you to guess which packaging I brought home) So with a smile and armed with more key learnings I will wait until the weather gets really nasty and try this allover again in the snow in a few weeks ...or sooner if I get the urge. I will post the results I find from testing my thermoneters in a separate thread if I find anything of interest to the board in my research. Thanks for the support and the comraderie.

ps. Dave, its funny you mention that as I was talking to someone in your department about a question about my rotiserie attachment and they had told me of your great pork sandwiches for lunch whem I told them what I was doing today Thats too coincidental. Boy are they in for a treat when you do it on the bullett for them.