My First Smoke...

[cingnut]

I finally got the weather to cooperate and I am ready to begin my first smoke.  I picked up two 7.5 pound butts from Sam's yesterday, I got them all rubbed down with yellow mustard, one with Ice's Butt rub, and the other with Famous Dave's rub.  They are chillin' in the fridge until tomorrow evening around 7 or 8PM when I will pop them in the new Bradley with 4 hours of Hickory smoke.

Any last words of advise on cook temps, internal temps, tips, tricks, or general words of wisdom?

NOTE:  I have a digital 6 rack with a Maverick E75 Thermometer.

[LilSmoker]

Hi cingnut, i usually start butts or any long haul smoke 4 hours before going to bed.

For pulled pork i preheat the BS to 205-210f, smoke for 4 hours, at 4 hour mark, change water, shut the door and go to bed.
Get up in the morning, check temps, wait for meat IT to reach 190f, remove from BS, FTC for 2 hours min, then it's ready to go, absolutely delicious!

Good luck, please let us know how it goes ;)

LilSmoker

[Wildcat]

OK, LS covered the rest so I will assist with the tip and trick.  Tip - I bet Iceman's rub wins.  Trick - adult beverages adds a little extra fun to the experience. ;D

[Gizmo]

Just in case:
Make sure you have seasoned the bradley before its maiden voyage.
Use the Maverick's oven probe as your box temp.  Don't go by the DBS's built in reading as it measure very close to the heating element.

Pre-heat the DBS for 45 minutes to an hour before loading with meat.  I like to take mine to about 250 Deg or so as it will cool quickly when loading.

Take the butts out about an hour or so before smoking so they can come up to temperature a little.  I have mine out while getting the DBS ready to go and preheated.

LS has the rest well covered.

[IKnowWood]

Good luck.  Does the DBS still have the 9 hr 45 minute or 20 minute autoshut off issue.

Two 7.5 butts will need about 18 to 20 hrs os low and slow cooking.  If they go in at 8 PM, then before 6 AM you need to make sure the DBS is still on.  If it is, keep going and check temps and about 1 to 3 PM it should be about done.

Then FTC for 2 hours, and then shread it or cool it down so its easier to handle and shread it with less chence of burning your hands.

And don't forget the temp hang at 160 to 180 degrees that will take hours....

[begolf25]

Don't rush it. You might notice the internal temps decide to hang out at around 160 for awhile. When this happens just be patient. Good luck with your smoke!

[cingnut]

I preheated the DBS to 246, filled the water bowl with hot water, and loaded in my 2 Butts about an hour ago...  Cabinet temp dropped immediately to about 192, the meat was about 42 when i put it in, in less than an hour it has risen to 52.

I have the digital oven temp set to 270 just to keep it at 192, I hope by the time the 4 hour smoke is finished I will need to drop that temp a little....  Anyone with a digital have any advise on that?

[LilSmoker]

With a large piece of meat such as a butt, the temp will take a long time to come up, it's like a little battle going on in there with the cabinet fighting to get hot, and the meat cooling it down, eventually of course the heat will win and then the meat is cooked.

At this stage i would say to you just maintain the correct cabinet temp as steady as you can, and the meat will follow in it's own time.

Please keep us informed though  ;)

LilSmoker

[Consiglieri]

When are you planning on serving?  I've found that it takes me about 24 hours to get a good sized butt cooked.  Here's a post I did a while back

Icerat4 posted an overnight technique that I think he learned from Chez B.  Here is a link discussing the technique:

http://forum.bradleysmoker.com/index.php?topic=4528.msg39690#msg39690

Maybe because I use a 6 rack dbs, I have found that it takes me more time to hit the 190F internal temp target cooking at the dbs 210F setting.  Close to 24 hours for a 9# bone-in pork leg, starting at 6pm the night before.  I tried the technique again starting the day before Superbowl using 14 lbs of Costco meat (cryovac'ed boned and in two pieces) and they were done right around halftime (around 3ish Pacific Time), but I rotated racks from time to time so the pieces would be done simultaneously. 

good luck with your meal!

[Gizmo]

I preheated the DBS to 246, filled the water bowl with hot water, and loaded in my 2 Butts about an hour ago...  Cabinet temp dropped immediately to about 192, the meat was about 42 when i put it in, in less than an hour it has risen to 52.

I have the digital oven temp set to 270 just to keep it at 192, I hope by the time the 4 hour smoke is finished I will need to drop that temp a little....  Anyone with a digital have any advise on that?

Didn't make in on the forum yesterday to be able to respond.  I am sure by now you already know this, but yes what you are experiencing with temps on the digital is what I have seen as well.   I typically monitor the box temp in the middle of the box next to the meat.  You need keep the box temp setting higher than expected (or as read on the built in temp gauge) until the meat starts to get higher in temperature.  I haven't kept record but I believe during the last smoke I had mine at 260 deg for a good period of time, then as the box temp started to reach 210, I started to lower the set poing by 1 setting to keep the box at around 210.   Eventually you'll reach the point where the box temp setting will be around 210 (or whatever you desired temperature is) and will no longer need further adjustmet.  One word of caution with running the box temp that high, if you have food on the lower rack positions, you will need to rotate the racks several times (top to bottom, front to back) as the temperatures on the lower rack will be hotter than the middle or top.  This can be really noticable as the meat on the lowest rack, near the back of the oven box will be more cooked than anywhere else.  That would be one disadvantage to completely loading the box with a lot of food.   The stir fan mod and PID mods that others have done will reduce that annoyance if you like to tinker.

[cingnut]

First dont shoot me for not posting pics!  My camera is in my desk at the office!

Everything turned out great, the butts reached 190 at around 1:20PM EST, I FTC'd them until dinner which was served at 6:00PM.

The shoulder blades slide right out, the meat was tender and juicy, everyone enjoyed as much as they could eat.

I ended up with two 1 gallon zip locks full of leftover so I am taking it and the rest of my baked beans and cole slaw to feed my troops at the office tomorrow.  I have been talking about this meat for days and they all threatened mutiny if I didnt feed them some of it.

Thanks to everyone who directly or indirectly assisted in this, and thanks to Bradley for the smoker!

[Wildcat]

Congrats and may all the rest of your smokes be successful as well.

[coyote]

Congrats on your success Cingnut , the sky's the limit from here. :) Keep the smoke rollin'.

                                                                                   Coyote

[LilSmoker]

Glad to hear the pork was a success, the first of many for sure!

[hillbillysmoker]

How about an application for a job at your office.  Sounds like there will be many happy coworkers.