Your BEST butt BARK?

[Dave Russell]

Wow, you guys have some great looking cooks going on! Being such a new guy to the WSM world, I only have three PBs under my belt and two of them were done in the same cook. I wasn't really impressed with the out come of those- seems like I burnt them up a bit. I do foil wrap, towel, and cooler them at the end. This weekend I'm doing another or two to work on the process. I should have my maverick and stubbs in for that cook to help in the temp control arena. I've struggled with controlling temp on my last cooks- not sure if I'm using too much unlit coal and not enough hot coals for my minion method (seems like it chokes out) or if its just been the ambient temp outside have been so cold and windy (been below 20 on both cooks) that it naturally messes with the cooking temp. I do run my WSM dry (foiled) but I am thinking of trying the water method just to get experience at it to underderstand the differences.

If you start out dry for several hours ad then add water is there any issue with that to help the bark formation process while still getting some moisture benefit?

Lastly, anybody use mustard on their PBs like you do on ribs? I'm thinking of trying that technique as well to see how that works. I've got a dry rub and raw sugar coming tomorrow that I'm going to try with a mustard base like I do for ribs. I'll let everyone know how it turns out…

Andy, by all means, try using water in the pan. You can still get pretty good bark, but that's not a big issue compared to managing the cook where there's no big surprises. Another way to put it is, why cook without water for best bark if you run a good chance of waking up to an almost done butt and have to wrap in foil to hold hot for hours? So much for the best bark. Better to get up real early and cook faster by day if you don't want to use water or an ATC.

 

[John Segura]

Andy, by all means, try using water in the pan. You can still get pretty good bark, but that's not a big issue compared to managing the cook where there's no big surprises. Another way to put it is, why cook without water for best bark if you run a good chance of waking up to an almost done butt and have to wrap in foil to hold hot for hours? So much for the best bark. Better to get up real early and cook faster by day if you don't want to use water or an ATC.

I cook with an ATC.. the Pitmaster IQ. Whether you are using an ATC or not, I would recommend start with a small/med size fire with just a few chunks of wood. Try to maintain an even temp between 250-275*, make small adjustments to your vents if necessary and allow 15 minutes for the temp to settle down. The PB is done when that bone starts to wiggle loose or it probes tender. When that happens let it rest/vent out in the open for about 15min. to stop the cooking process, then you can hold it for hours warm/hot in a cooler or turned off oven.

 

[timothy]

Tim- how do you maintain the 275 heat in the WSM? do you add coal during the cook or an ATC?

My 08- 18.5"- WSM has always settled in the 275 deg range with minimum fuss (no ATC) usually a fully loaded ring lasts me 10 or more hrs at those temps using a combination of RO lump and briqs.
Sometimes when I don't pack the ring tightly when going all lump, I'll have to add a few handfuls of large pcs thru the access door.
I always do the Minion method, add the smoke-wood, dump the lit, than immediately add the meat. Usually takes an hour or so to get to 250ish, than I'll cut back on the lower vents 75% and it will slowly rise to 275.
Now that's just 6 years learning how my 18" behaves My new to me 22" behaves a whole lot different, but I'm still learning.

Tim