OK so I seasoned my little Smokette and wanted to try my hand at a little Carolina style feed. Invited a few firends over, actually it was an excuse to clean the house b'cus boy it needed it! Anyway for the past few days I've been searching the all the posts and the Butt 101 for hints and suggestions...took a little from here and there and made my own plan.
Actually 2 butts at the same time the pork I used was not pre-injected as some are(I really don't eat that stuff) about 5-6lbs. each and bone in. I sampled both rubs that came with the CS and ended up using the spicy chicken rub, most of my own rubs in the past have had included sugar and so I wanted to try something different. I cut some criss-cross marks and rubbed them the night before. Started at 'bout 5:30am put them on at 220' with three smallish chunks of hickory. Total cook time was 11 hours...
I think for the first attempt the results were very very good...Good smoky flavor without being too much. Very easy to pull and very moist. Appearence though was darker than I thought is was going to be.
The general concensus was thumbs up all around.. and these people know food!
I did have have a few questions..
I checked the temps a few times and it seemed that they got to 160' internal within 5 hours.
Is that too quick??
I thought it was so I lowerd the temp to 200' and let them go for 3 more. The temp was at that point 180' and they were real tender. I figured at that point to hold them till 6:00pm and put the temp down to 150' The result was real good.
I did not mop..should I have? Does this produce the 'bark' that I'm hearing about. Mind you the outside of the meat did have a dark soft 'crust' which was a bit thin but real tasty. Does the sugar in the other rub help this along?
I think my hesitation to mop was that I thought there would be too much heat and smoke loss with repeated openings of the smoker...?
It also seemed that the smoke did not get all the way into the meat. What do you think?
I also didn't use a brine or inject like I have in the past using chicken in other smokers; and again there was no problem with miosture loss.
To be honest there aren't many good BBQ places around here to go and sample and compare. The ones that are here like to cook ribs and beef. I'll get to that point but not right now.
Thats it for now, got some mighty good leftovers to eat up today.
...A big salute and a tear for those lost fighting for our country....
lynnae
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