First Pork Butt

[JohnM70]

I cannot believe how great it turned out. We smoked a 5lbs port butt on Saturday. I have probably read the forums 3 times before I started. One thing for sure I did not remember much! On Friday evening, my wife and I decided to prep the butt. I had read numerous articles on home grown and commercial rubs. We had the butt for 4 days and I did not want to freeze before smoking. Since this was, sort of a spur of the moment thing I did not have time to buy a commercial rub nor use some type of injection. My wife decided to make our own. We went through our (very large) spice and combined a number of items. Please do not ask, neither one of us can remember. We packed the butt and because we are in South Dakota finding room in one of our refrigerators was not necessary as our garage is kept at 45F degrees. The outside temperature was in the teens and below.
Saturday morning is here, I bring the butt in so it can come up to room temperature that was about 09:15. At 10:30, I fired up the BDS. Knowing the temperature sensor in the BDS is only a WAG I have purchased a Maverick remote barbecue thermometer and tested with two instant read thermometers they were all within 3+- degrees of each other. Actually, the maverick probes were equal. Now for the fun part as I said I have read the forums noting the times for butts which were much larger and numerous butts were in the cabinet. Therefore, I decided it is only going to take about 8 to 10 hours to smoke! ??? OK stop laughing! I decided to smoke for 3 hours alternating oak and hickory. When I inserted the meat probe into the butt it was only at 55F degrees. Oops so it make take a little longer (quell the laughter). I have only had the BDS since Thanksgiving and used it twice before, a whole chicken and a bottom round, both which came out fantastic. 

As you all can imagine my timing was off. In addition, I had trouble keeping the temperature at 220. The outside temperature was in the low 20's and dropping and to make things worse the wind was kicking up. Not bad but about 10 to 15 MPH. The BDS is somewhat sheltered on our deck. To help keep the heat in I wrapped the cabinet with a thermal blanket, normally kept the SUV in the winter. The cabinet temperature would go from 200 to 245 and I was constantly adjusting. As we moved into late evening, I got the idea to turn the SG on. That worked I was able to maintain 220 for the rest of the process. About midnight (that is my story and I am sticking to it :-X) the meat temp alarm went off. I performed the FTC and went to bed. This morning 09:30, I removed the butt form the cooler and could not believe it was still warm. We pulled it, sampled, sampled, sampled O ;D! I cannot believe how tasty and moist the meat is. You do not need BBQ sauce.

Hopefully in the Spring and Summer will make things a little easier. At least I can sit on the deck with a beer, then again that did not stop me last night, except I was in the rec room  watching the Vikings go down the tubes.

Sorry for the long read but I cannot get over how my smoking attempts have turned out. Next... turkey  or brisket!

Hail to the Redskins!

John

[beefmann]

congrats on a job well done and there are a  lot of smokes / cooks that  easily take long times

[mikecorn.1]

Sent from my iPhone 5 using Tapatalk

[JohnM70]

Sorry, I knew, but is was way below freezing :-[. I will have pictures of either turkey or brisket. Also I used a larger catch pan, I was going to use add orange juice towards the end but is was a pain to remove the blanket. I  will comply next time.

[KyNola]

Nicely done John.  Looks like it came out well.  Only thing I will say is when you were seeing the temp swing from 200 to 245, that is totally normal and there really was no need for you to constantly adjust.  Those temps swings lessen as the meat comes up to temp.

Overall, nice job!

[JohnM70]

Thanks KyNola I will remember that for the next time. Too many meats to smoke but I will get there.

John

[GusRobin]

nice job.
The only comment I have is regarding the 9.5 hours of FTC time (if I read the post correctly). That seems excessive in that although it was "still warm" was it above 140*? If not how long was it in the danger zone (40*-140*). Need to be mindful of that on long FTC times.

[DaveT261]

What does ftc stand for??

[devo]

What does ftc stand for??

Foil Towel Cooler

You might also like this page. It explains most acronyms.
http://www.susanminor.org/forums/showthread.php?488-Answers-To-Bradley-Smoker-FAQ-s&p=766#post766

[DaveT261]

What does ftc stand for??

Foil Towel Cooler

You might also like this page. It explains most acronyms.
http://www.susanminor.org/forums/showthread.php?488-Answers-To-Bradley-Smoker-FAQ-s&p=766#post766

Thanks

I do that too, just never heard it called that.  I bought a 24 can cooler just for that reason.  Its big enough to put 2 butts in and small enough to keep the heat in.  I usually put down some crumpled newspapers in the bottom along with the towels. 

[JohnM70]

The only comment I have is regarding the 9.5 hours of FTC time (if I read the post correctly). That seems excessive in that although it was "still warm" was it above 140*? If not how long was it in the danger zone (40*-140*). Need to be mindful of that on long FTC times.

Thanks Gus, I was so happy when the butt came out that I forgot some common sense :-[.
So far so good no one is sick :). Believe me I will remember this the next time.

John 

[JohnM70]

The only comment I have is regarding the 9.5 hours of FTC time (if I read the post correctly). That seems excessive in that although it was "still warm" was it above 140*? If not how long was it in the danger zone (40*-140*). Need to be mindful of that on long FTC times.

Hi Gus, well it looks like we dodge a bullet on the FTC times ;D. We had a half dozen taste the meat and no one complained of any discomfort. I will be mindful of the of the FTC time from now on and plan a little better. Next a brisket.

Again thanks Gus for the heads up.

John