First world problems.

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Fat_Bulldog
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Re: First world problems.

Post by Fat_Bulldog »

JCShutout wrote:
March 19 20, 10:00 am
Fat_Bulldog wrote:
March 19 20, 9:13 am
I am going to smoke a whole pork loin tomorrow. Should I use apple wood, hickory wood or a combo? I can't decide.

These are the kind of things I'm focusing on right now.

My wife is making a taco feast today and making homemade tortilla shells. I can't wait.
Love this. Its actually very smart. Focus on what is in front of you. Yesterday was the first day off work for us, so I made a daily routine schedule for myself (including two workouts a day, well, one is a walk/ruck) and a giant list of projects and things to try. One of which is learning how to smoke meats in my charcoal grill. (There were plenty of bags of charcoal and smoking chips at the grocery store during the panic, and no one seems to want pork, so I picked up a big pork butt and already had a brisket in the freezer.) I grabbed hickory and pecan, because I had no clue what was good. Never tried it before. Probably won't do it until next week sometime as I have other projects to do first and I'll make it a yardwork day since I figure it will take, what, 8 hours?
Any of the flavor of wood you have will be good for any of the meats you mention. You'll figure out which you like best through trial and error.

Regarding the time of how long to cook depends on a lot of things. What size pork butt or brisket? What type of smoker/grill are you planning to use? I assume you plan to go indirect with heat... Also, what temperature do you plan to keep your smoker/grill at?

For brisket, I like to go low on slow with my smoker. 225 degrees and I plan for about 1.25 hours per pound. I wrap (put in foil with some beef broth and additional seasonings to steam a bit and tenderize) when the internal temp of the meat hits 160 and then unwrap and let it set up with bark and finish until the internal temp of the meat is 205.

Pork butts are way more forgiving. Depends on how "done" you like it. I'd say about an hour per pound at 225 or 250... Some like the bone blade to slide out clean and be able to pull the butt easy. Others like to slice and chop. If you want to easily pull and like it fall apart tender, let it go to 205 degrees. If you want to slice and chop, let it go to about 195.

I've been doing this for about 25 years on all types of grills and smokers.

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JCShutout
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Re: First world problems.

Post by JCShutout »

Fat_Bulldog wrote:
March 19 20, 12:21 pm
JCShutout wrote:
March 19 20, 10:00 am
Fat_Bulldog wrote:
March 19 20, 9:13 am
I am going to smoke a whole pork loin tomorrow. Should I use apple wood, hickory wood or a combo? I can't decide.

These are the kind of things I'm focusing on right now.

My wife is making a taco feast today and making homemade tortilla shells. I can't wait.
Love this. Its actually very smart. Focus on what is in front of you. Yesterday was the first day off work for us, so I made a daily routine schedule for myself (including two workouts a day, well, one is a walk/ruck) and a giant list of projects and things to try. One of which is learning how to smoke meats in my charcoal grill. (There were plenty of bags of charcoal and smoking chips at the grocery store during the panic, and no one seems to want pork, so I picked up a big pork butt and already had a brisket in the freezer.) I grabbed hickory and pecan, because I had no clue what was good. Never tried it before. Probably won't do it until next week sometime as I have other projects to do first and I'll make it a yardwork day since I figure it will take, what, 8 hours?
Any of the flavor of wood you have will be good for any of the meats you mention. You'll figure out which you like best through trial and error.

Regarding the time of how long to cook depends on a lot of things. What size pork butt or brisket? What type of smoker/grill are you planning to use? I assume you plan to go indirect with heat... Also, what temperature do you plan to keep your smoker/grill at?

For brisket, I like to go low on slow with my smoker. 225 degrees and I plan for about 1.25 hours per pound. I wrap (put in foil with some beef broth and additional seasonings to steam a bit and tenderize) when the internal temp of the meat hits 160 and then unwrap and let it set up with bark and finish until the internal temp of the meat is 205.

Pork butts are way more forgiving. Depends on how "done" you like it. I'd say about an hour per pound at 225 or 250... Some like the bone blade to slide out clean and be able to pull the butt easy. Others like to slice and chop. If you want to easily pull and like it fall apart tender, let it go to 205 degrees. If you want to slice and chop, let it go to about 195.

I've been doing this for about 25 years on all types of grills and smokers.
Awesome, thanks for the tips! I like the pulled pork fall apart tender so I'll go until its at 205. We usually do it in a crock pot but I figure this would be fun to try. I don't remember the sizes off the top of my head, but one of my projects is reorganizing the deep freeze so I'll know soonish. I'll follow you suggested times though.

Yes, going with indirect heat. Bought little charcoal buckets to keep the coals on the side and a rack with sides that can raise so I can add coals as needed, an aluminum pan to catch drippings, and I bought a thermometer which I guess I'll just lay in the vent hole. My grill is a little 19 inch weber.

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Fat_Bulldog
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Re: First world problems.

Post by Fat_Bulldog »

If you're not sure with the pork butt, let it go on the smoker for 5 hours (it won't take on much more smoke flavor after that anyway) and get smoke and bark on it and then finish in the crock pot. It will be hard to keep the temp low in that size of smoker but you can do it.

Freed has really good crock pot recipes... LOL

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JCShutout
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Re: First world problems.

Post by JCShutout »

Ok, freezer reorganized. The pork butt is 9.75lbs. I'm guessing I should chop that in half and freeze the rest. Half would put the smoking time at about 4.5-5 hours.

we don't have a brisket. Thought we still did but was wrong. Maybe next month I'll get one.
Last edited by JCShutout on March 19 20, 3:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

AWvsCBsteeeerike3
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Re: First world problems.

Post by AWvsCBsteeeerike3 »

We smoked a pork butt on Sunday after going to the store and there not being any chicken or beef or well, you get the idea. Said, f it, I'll take the communities leftovers and make it glorious. Have had a bunch of pork sandwiches this week, pork nachos, pork tacos. JUst all sorts of things you can do with it.

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Re: First world problems.

Post by AWvsCBsteeeerike3 »

If you're looking to minimize cook time, monitor the temp and when it stalls (usually about 165), go ahead and wrap it in foil then crank the heat up to around 300 if possible. Wrapping it reduces the stall and obviously high heat leads to quicker cooking with no real distinguishable difference to the end product.

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Re: First world problems.

Post by JCShutout »

Its a charcoal grill so "cranking it up" means adding more prelit coals I guess.

I just hope I don't ruin it.

AWvsCBsteeeerike3
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Re: First world problems.

Post by AWvsCBsteeeerike3 »

Dude you’ll do great. You can check out the meat smoking thread for a ton of tips. Or google it. There is no shortage of advice.

Whatever you do make sure to take some pics and post them for us.

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Fat_Bulldog
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Re: First world problems.

Post by Fat_Bulldog »

JC - cook that butt whole. Doing half would not be good.

And what you can't eat, ziploc and freeze in portions. Then thaw, add a bit of bbq sauce in a skillet or wercestershire, or soy sauce, reheat and enjoy!

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JCShutout
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Re: First world problems.

Post by JCShutout »

Yeah, I will cook it whole. I found a couple of videos with how tos and the like for cooking a 10lb butt which made me feel a bit better about how to do it. I don't have a fancy thermometer that I can keep in the animal all day, but I can just keep the temperature gauge in the vent where it needs to be and check a couple of times when I add charcoal and wood chips. My plan is to finish a few projects and do this mid or late next week after a day of research and note prep and after making a rub and maybe a bbq sauce from scratch. I figure I'll start around 6 or 7am so it will be done by dinnertime. We have a bunch of plastic individual serving containers for freezing leftovers in single-serve batches so I figure we can eat it for 2-3 days and freeze the rest.

I assume this is something I can get started and leave for small stretches of time. Go on 30-60 min walks, come back and check the temperature, etc?

If that goes well and I can't get or afford a brisket, we do have a couple racks of ribs in the deep freeze. Might try smoking those next. We usually cook them low and slow in the oven and they are amazing, but we'll see. Lets not put the cart in front of the horse.

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