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The UPS Man Cometh!

FM Former Member
Its here! Its here! Its here!

My Smokette, cart and accessories have arrived! Everything showed up in perfect condition. I've unpacked everything, wiped down the inside, washed the grills, and mounted the Smokette on the cart...

Note to Cookshack: There HAS to be a better way to attached the Smokette to the cart and lined the bottom and firebox with foil... When mounting the Smokette onto the cart, I was able to line up the front holes and thread in the screws, but the back ones are impossible to do alone. I'm going to wait until my wife comes home and lift up the back legs a bit and see if she can get the screws started. Maybe Cookshack should consider threaded studs that can be screwen into the legs and then inserted through the holes in the base? Then you can provide threaded knobs that would be easier to put on... Just a thought...

Anyway... My Smokette is in the seasoning process right now. 4 1/2 oz. of hickory went in about 10 minutes ago. I put a remote thermometer probe into the chamber and the starting temp was 47 degrees. It is now up to 82 degrees...

I'm going to go to the store in a bit to see what I can find in the way of a butt... My plan is still to do a butt for Sunday dinner...

...ron
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FM Former Member
Take a deep breath. Let it out slowly. A UPS delivery can get anyone overly excited this time of year. If you haven't already gone to the store, maybe you should get a neighbor to drive you. And someone to help restrain you at the meat counter might be a good thing too. I bought like a hundred pounds of meat the first weekend I had my smoker. Smiler
FM Former Member
Thanks for the calming words, Todd... I had to drop a couple of packages off a Fed Ex, so I stopped by Sam's Club on the way home. They didn't have a single butt or shoulder or whatever you want to call it! They did have some nice looking baby backs, so I grabbed a cryo of those, but I really wanted to try a butt, so I went to the local jewel Foods store (owned by Safeway), and they had one "Pork Shoulder Roast" and that was it. It looked nice a nice piece of meat so i grabbed it. It is about 8 1/2 lbs. Its been rubbed with CS Rib Rub and is resting in plastic wrap in the fridge now. I think I'll put it in the Smokette before I go to bed tomorrow night (about midnight). If I go by 1.5 hours per pound, it'll be done around 1:00pm, and I'll have plenty of time in case it takes longer...

...ron

Smokin' in the suburbs!
FM Former Member
Ron. Welcome to the group.

Like Todd said...take a deep breath...

At Sam's I have to ask for Butts, they never have them in the front counters.

If you have comments about the delivery, just give them a call on Monday. Customer Service doesn't monitor the forum and I'm sure they'd appreciate any feedback.

On that butt. Lately none of my butts have taken 1.5 hours, more like 1 hour per pound. I'd put it in when you go to sleep at 200 and let it smoke overnight, then bump the temp up when you get up. Or you way, whichever you want.
FM Former Member
I figure about an hour a pound also for butts. Now what you need to do is go out and get a wireless thermometer so that you can sleep knowing that if it should cook faster than expected, you'll still get a beep to wake you.

Also, if you do get a thermometer, wireless or otherwise, be prepared for the temp plateau that occurs around 170-180*. You might think there's something wrong when the temp dosen't change for a few hours. Don't worry, it's normal. You can crank up the heat and break through the plateau, but better to leave everything as it is and let the butt cook slow. You'll render more of the fat that way and have better meat.
FM Former Member
Thanks, guys...

As luck would have it, it 10 PM, snowing, and the wind has kicked up from the northwest at 20 - 30 MPH, and the temp is going to hit single digits tonight!

Sound like a great night to test my Smokette!

I'm going to put the butt in at midnight and, with the weather, I think I'll keep the temp at 225 and monitor the meat temp as the night goes on. I generally wake up a couple of times, and I do have a wireless thermometer, so I'll just check it once in a while. The dog gets me up at about 6:30, so I can always lower the temp then if things are going too fast.
FM Former Member
OK... So now what do I do?

The butt has been in for 10 hours and things seem to be going well, but my wireless thermometer has stopped working. I have the probe from the wireless in the butt, and the probe from my wired thermometer in the cabinet on the shelf next to the butt to monitor cabinet temp. The transmitter end from the wireless was outside all night, and was working at 6:00AM. At that point, the meat temp was 147. I walked outside with the wired thermometer and the cabinet temp was 206. The outside temp at that point was 1 degree!

So... I know that the smokette is working fine, but I have no idea what the meat temperature is... I've brought the transmitter into the house to warm up, so I'll try it again shortly. If that doesn't work, should I open the cabinet and move the other probe into the meat? Cabinet temps seem to be OK, so I really don't need that one, but I'm concerned about opening the thing up when its 1 degree outside!
FM Former Member
Heck, if it's that cold outside.. do you have a plastic colendar? You might put the sending unit under the colendar and all over the exhaust hole at the top of the smokette. Batteries hate to do anything when they reach a low temp. Else, what I'd do is open the cabinet long enough to insert an instant read analog thermometer.

Good luck.. Bill
FM Former Member
Oooo... I didn't think about the colandar idea... Good idea... Thanks...

I had the transmitter inside for 90 minutes and it still doesn't seem to work (I get no signal on the receiving unit), so I put on my pair of Ov-Gloves and opened the door and moved the other probe into the meat and close the door. The door was open for about three minutes, so the temp should recover quickly. The butt looked and smelled great! Once the door was loces I plugged the wired thremo in and the meat was at 163.

One other question... Besides the mountain range of frozen drippings in the drip pan, I am getting drippings at the bottom of the door. Is that normal?
FM Former Member
Ron,
Did you have the drippings at the door when you first opened the door? Or were they there after you checked the meat? Could they be from sliding the meat out a bit? Was your drain tube still clear? Or was it full of drippings?
I'm glad you're enjoying your smoker. I couldn't wait for mine to beep when it went on hold temp! I watched it every five minutes to check the temp change! I have the CS150.
Peggy
FM Former Member
The drippings were in the little trough at the base of the door, and dripping out of the hole in that through. The dripping were there when I went out at six to see how things were going. I didn't open the door until 10-ish... As far as I could tell, the drain hole was clear. I was able to stick a finger up into it...
FM Former Member
Well... The butt made it to 190 degrees at about 4:45pm, so that's 16 hours 45 minutes. I pulled it from the Smokette and double wrapped in HD foil and then in two beach towels and then stuck it into a heavy duty styrofoam cooler that I received from Omaha Steaks a few year ago. Since my daughter had plans at 7, I unwrapped the butt and pulled the pork at 6. It literally fell off of the bone and was wonderfully moist. I added some additional rub and then mixed in some barbeque sauce (not too much... Everyone can add their own if they like it wetter). We ate it on hamburger buns with cole slaw (I made the interstate Bar-B-Q recipe I found on the recipe forum). It was wonderful... I am sooooo full! We ate a bunch, I gave some to the neighbors and then vac sealed the rest and stuck it into the freezer.

Thanks for all the help... I think I'm going to do some ribs and beans on Tuesday and some ABTs on Thursday if I have time...

Here's some pictures...

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/rclewen/album?.dir=/8600&...tok=ph9uOPCBv00kz8_9
FM Former Member
quote:
Originally posted by prisonchef313:
[qb] way to go ron!!!!!!!
you is smokin now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
glad that it came out great.
and welcome
jack
ps. 1 degree??!!!! now i remember why i left indiana lol [/qb]
Yeah... My outside thermometer was hovering between 1 and 0 when I woke at 6. As a bonus, the wind was kickin' at about 25 mph, so the wind chill (you do remember wind chill, right? ) was somewhere around 20 below! For the Bears game, the temp had climbed to 10, and the wind chill was only -15!

We don't get this cold that often, but when it happens, its no fun...
FM Former Member
quote:
Originally posted by WeeWilly:
[qb] From all appearances.. you gotta nice butt.. Wink

Way to go.. Makes me want to do another.. but doing a bunch of ribs before that. [/qb]
Quit lookin' at my butt! Big Grin

Here's a cute story... After we ate the pulled pork, I was volunteered to drive my daughter to pick up a friend and then to the movie theatre. On the way to pick up her friend, my daughter was commenting on how wierd I am (she's 16...). When I asked her why I was wierd, she said...

"None of my friends fathers take pictures of their butt and put them on the internet!"

Then she realized what she said... We laughed all the way to her friends house!

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