Who the hell live blogs making pulled pork? I guess I do… *shrug*

This will be a 2-Day Event, So I’m about to start pissing off every ones feed readers with updates.. But, in the process, perhaps you, and I, can all learn a little bit about smoking…

Finally done….

Find out what it took after the jump…

5:30pm EST [10/09/2007]: I mixed up some of my Special Pork Rub… This is a Mixture of about 4-5 recipes I have found online… Honestly, I rarely measure anything in when I’m cooking, so here is how the recipie is written down for me to remember.

“Brown Sugar, Mustard, Cumin, Chili Powder, Paprika, Onion Powder, Garlic Powder, Black Pepper, White Pepper, Salt, All Spice”

Pretty much all of my favorite things. Just mix and match those and similar flavors to your liking.

Trim’n my butt…

5:45pm EST [10/09/2007]: I trimmed up my Pork Butt. Oddly by Butt they don’t mean ass, they mean shoulder. Lame. There goes all my poop jokes. Anyways, I trimmed off some of the excess skin, and then scored the “fat-cap” on the top. Some people remove this part all together, but I like scoring it, and then cramming as much of my rub in it as I can. I call this the “Auto-Fat-Flavoring-Driper-Matic 2.0″ — But who knows, it might just be a waste of time… ;) I also read that if you leave the top skin on, scoring it will help smoke work it’s way in. The last butt I did, i did it this way, and it worked really well.

5:50pm EST [10/09/2007]: Miller Time.

6:00pm EST [10/09/2007]: OK, Pork Butt is Cut, and time to do the rub. I have read that a lot of people use binders like mustard to help hold the rub on. I decided to use Apple Cider (If this was Iron Chef, Apple Cider would be my Secret Ingredient this week…) — So, I just put some cider in a spray bottle and coated liberally. And actually, to my surprise, it worked really well.

[* Side Note: To me, Pork and apples go together like peanut butter and jelly… ]

Wrap’n my butt…

6:10pm EST [10/09/2007]: Rub complete… And smelling absolutely awesome.. Now, I wrapped it up tightly in Saran wrap to let it sit in the fridge a little bit longer. I’ll pull it out a lil later to let it work it’s way up to room temp before I throw it on the smoker tomorrow morning…

Hickory and Apple Wood, Chunks and Chips…

11:10pm EST [10/09/2007]: Time to start soaking the wood chips. For this smoke I’ll be using a mixture of Apple Wood and Hickory both in chip and chunk form. I mix mine 50/50 Chip and chunk, and then mix that 50/50 Dry and soaked.

I have read quite a bit about this. There are many varying opinions on which you should use (chip vs. chunk, dry vs. soaked). From my experience, Mixing them all 50/50 gives you a larger margin of error. This makes it easier to keep the chips smoking, and not burning, more evenly over a period of time. When I used all dry, I found fires to be more common, and when I used all soaked I found getting the initial “blue wispy smoke” harder to obtain.

The only rule of thumb I have about my chips, is if I do soak them, to use filtered water. City water contains chlorine and other chemicals, which is definitely, not good eats. Some people soak in whisky, wine, etc. But, that is your own discretion. I’d rather drink those.

For more details and opinions check out the Smoking Meat Forums (This might not be something you want to look at while you’re at the office… The domain might raise an eyebrow or two…)

IR Thermometer Shows Meat Temp (Straight out of the fridge)

1:45am EST [10/10/2007]: Okay. I just pulled the meat out of the fridge for the night. The point of this is to let this massive hunk of meat get closer to room temp before putting it in the smoker. My IR Thermometer is showing 47 degrees, which is a little high, but that is either because the saran wrap is acting as an insulator or blocking the reading. I didn’t stick my probe thermometer into it because I’m trying to avoid poking holes into the meat until smoking has commenced, but I would guess the internal temp is closer to 38-40 degrees. The temperature really doesn’t matter at this point — I’m really just trying to get a better understanding of how long I should plan to allow for this step in the future.

So before you freak out, and think I’m following Taco Bells sanitation manual by leaving meat out for a couple of hours hear me out: By letting the meat get up to room temp, it levels the playing field on how much cooking time is needed to complete the smoke, and at the same time will let the meat cook more evenly. That’s why this is a very important step. Think of it this way. If you put a cold steak on a hot grill, it will take the steak longer to get to the proper doneness level. This means, you would have a Well-Done Outside, with a medium rare inside. This is a mistake so many people make, and why so many backyard BBQ steaks are over done, dry, and tough — Cooks end up cooking the begeesus out of them to over compensate when they don’t need to with proper prep (Or, they end up under cooking them). Regardless, I follow this rule of thumb for all meat — with the exception of poultry. Poultry is not something you want to f**k with. Short of being frozen solid, there is just something about letting chicken sit out on my counter that just seems like a really bad idea.

Yummy. Lump o’ Pork…

8:00am EST [10/10/2007]: I woke up and up an unwrapped the pork. After sitting out all night, it was still only 68 degrees. So it still hadn’t fully reached room temperature. Which is about perfect. So I’m guessing a 4-5 hour sit for a 10lb piece.

Time to Fire Up the smoker…

8:10am EST [10/10/2007]: Okay, now it’s time to fire up the smoker. When I first fire it up, I like to crank it to high for about 10 mins. I keep my smoker in the garage, and this just burns out any dust or other gafunkda that has accumulated since the last time I used it. This also preheats the fire-box. This model has a hefty cast iron fire box that is slow as hell to get up to temperature — but once you get it there, it holds it really well. Just make sure after this step you leave the door open for a min or two to let the excess heat escape before you put your meat in there.

Smoker Temp Probe

8:20am EST [10/10/2007]: I saw this trick on the forums. This lets you monitor the temp in the smoker a little better than the built in smoker thermometer. The apple helps keep the probe suspended and stable and off any metal parts that might give false readings. I’ll keep this in there for an hour or so until I see what the difference is between the door thermometer and my desired smoking temp. Then, I’ll just use that deviation for reference once I put the probe in the meat. My current desired temp is 225.

We have pork insertion!

8:30am EST [10/10/2007]: That’s a great picture of what is going on in the smoker. First you have the smoke box which contains the chips. Second you have the water bowl. (More details Below) And finally the meat / Apple Temp Probe. I actually moved the meat down a level this smoke to get it closer to the door temp probe and to make it easier to do flavor maintenance later.

Now, the water bowl is actually not for what most people think it’s for. This is not to ’steam’ the meat — but it is simply used as a capacitor in your smoker. It builds up and stores heat so when the door is opened, the temp recovery times is much shorter. Some people even use sand or stones in the bowl as to not add any additional moisture to the smoke. (A by product of burning propane is water.. which is one of the main reason purists prefer charcoal) — This smoke, instead of water, I’m using apple cider. Many, Many, Many, people say adding flavors to the water bowl is a waste of time. I’m not going to say anything until I try it for myself. So, We’ll see. apple cider was on sale this week at Publix — So it’s cheap experiment.

9:20am EST [10/10/2007]: Just went out and checked the temp. It’s hovering right around 215. This is fine by me. My goal is 225, but the heat of the Florida day will bring it up the last few degrees. Last time I fought the temp all day long trying to keep it nice and even as the day heated up and cooled off — But didn’t realize that was what was affecting the temp at the time.

I’m going to wait about another 45 mins and check again before I start fussing with the thermostat.

10:20am EST [10/10/2007]: Just as I had suspected, it’s about 10 degrees warmer out now than when I had started, and the temp is right @ 223. Perfect.

11:00am EST [10/10/2007]: Sorry guys, forgot my camera on this one. I just changed the chips for the first time. The old chips weren’t 100% burnt out, but it was a good time for a swap-a-roo. I also misted the pork with a spray bottle of Apple Cider. Right now, my backyard smells like a apple orchard on fire… It’s awesome.

11:22am EST [10/10/2007]: Holy Crap! So, I’m guessing that the smoke / exhaust / smell is like Love Bug Spanish fly… I can’t walk out on my back patio, there are 1,000’s of these lil buggers out there…

Mmmmm.. Smoked Apple…

12:30pm EST [10/10/2007]: So, I just switched the temp probe from the apple to the pork. Pork is at a nice 133 degrees right now.. And the smoker has leveled off to a perfect 225 after a little vent management.

So, look at the color of the apple now! It’s a nice golden brown…. So, I had to do it.. I had to taste it.. And it is… DELICIOUS… I think next time I smoke I’m going to put some apples on the top row and make some smoked applesauce… Whats surprising, is this apple is actually really old, (which is why I decided to sacrifice it as a probe holder) It’s been in our fridge for 3 weeks now… So I can only imagine how good it would be if it was fresh.

2:15pm EST [10/10/2007]: The temp has hit a plateau of about 155 degrees. This is okay, and can be expected — it should start climbing again shortly. I’m shooting for right around 200 degrees — Which should put this guy finishing at around 6:30 — Which is right on time.

The third round of chips is finally burning out — And it’s been on the smoke for 6 hours, so I’m going to lay off the smoking for now. Most people say that after 6 hours smoke stops getting absorbed. So, I’m going to lay off for now, and give it one final dose @ around 5:00… But this is mainly so the neighbors can droll in envy from the smell as they come home from work… :) I guess this makes me a Suburban Odor terrorist…

8 Hours In.

3:30pm EST [10/10/2007]: We have gotten over the plateau, and temp is now at 165. And from the picture — you can tell - looking delicious.

6:30pm EST [10/10/2007]: I thought I was over the plateau. But I was wrong. holding strong at 170 right now. Ugg! The waiting is killing me. I just verified the smoker temp is at a solid 225. So, Hoping it breaks soon.. I’m starving!

8:30pm EST [10/10/2007]: Just rounded 185. The natives are getting restless… we’re in the home stretch.. I’m starting to realize, next time I’m going to have to start at about 6:30am to get this done before dinner.

9:30pm EST [10/10/2007]: Just hit 200, and I pulled it off the fire. Now it’s taking a nice rest before I start pulling. It’s to late now for dinner… But I’ll pull it tonight for sure. Pictures later.

Finally done….

10:30pm EST [10/10/2007]: Finally. After much smoking, and Sitting, and waiting… We have a finsihsed product… And it’s delicious…