No big news, pics or anything, but I unwrapped the smoker (put away for the winter) thursday and smoked a butt after a long winter with no "smoke'. Some garlic sausage and a few ribs found their way into the smoker for lunch. It's funny, I'm still new at this and I couldn't remember exactly what I had learned from previous butt's and didn't really care. I just needed to smoke one! It just got thawed in the shop refridg for a few days, Some generic grocery store rub, and double wrapped in foil. I didn't bother with the fancy thermometer & probe, injecting a brine, nothing, just let it cook all day and stuck it with a thermometer at the end of the day. It was around 210 or so I unwrapped (it dammear fell apart) it because I wanted some bark and saved the heavenly goodness left in the foil, pulled off a bunch of the fat and pulled the bone out. The coals were winding down and the smoker was under 200 so I threw a few hickory chunks on it and let it absorb some smoke while naked. Either it was the best one yet, or I was just so starved for smoked pulled pork that it seem'd that way. Either way I glad to have the smoker back out and the "fire" re-lit for smoking. The juice was amazing. I thought that it was prolly going to turn up being mostly fat. It wasn't, my last little burst for some bark did dry the outside a little and that juice came in handy after it was all pulled. This was the smoker for most of the last several months
Yes, this one. Like I said I couldn't remember how I last did it. I have had some meat too smokey, although I think that was with ribs. Now that I'm really thinking about it, I have always wrapped them first, some times even adding water or juice to the foil wrap. The steam helps cooking & with moisture needed for a 7-8 hour cook.
That is interesting. I learned to wrap once the butt reached ~165°F (smoke for 3-4 hours).... take up to ~190°F, then off and rest for 30 mins., pull apart. Now then, I ran the smoker this past Saturday, and put smoke to it for nearly 6 hours, because the internal temp wasn't coming up like I was used to last summer....I thought it was a bit smokey, which meant my wife thought it was waaaaay too smokey.... I'd like to ask some coworker buddies if they've heard about wrapping from the start. It sounds logical as far as rendering the fat and such.
Eric, like I said, I am still learning. I'm sure there's a 100 way's to skin this cat, it just seems that you really have to screw up for it to be "bad". And then, I'd never admit it.