Doesn't look like much, but, boy was it tasty! My first attempts at Smoking (pulled pork)

[hoffy]

Ever get that feeling that you should have taken a picture of the BBQ you have just completed, all sliced and diced in all of its glory..... Well, that is the feeling I've got looking at that picture! Believe me, the taste was much better then the picture! & the amateur photographer in my is horrified )

Anyhow, today I tried my first low and slow smoke cook. Todays cook was a beginner 2kg pork scotch (or neck, or shoulder). I followed the directions found here (including the meatheads rub): http://amazingribs.com/recipes/porknogr ... _pork.html

The was the hunk of pork before the cook and the rub:

And todays setup (minus the smoking wood, which was a mix of cherry, apple and mesquite ):
The piece was put on @ around 8:00am this morning, with it being served @ 6:pm this evening.

As I said above, smoke was via cherry, apple and mesquite (from Bunnings), fuel was Pro Smoke Charcoal Briquettes.

It wasn't completely trouble free - it took a little while to get the temps stablised. The old kettle that I am using is an old gas burner, which I now use as a charcoal burner, with quite a number of vents in the bottom and some seriously big gaps between the lid and the fuel chamber. In the end, I blanked off pretty much all the vents to keep the temps down.

The other drama - I ran out of fuel. At about 2PM, half way through the stall, temps dropped and very few burning coals were left. I managed to do a quick top up and got it going again, but I ran out at around 4:30 with 10 degrees to go on the cook. At that point, I cut my losses, wrapped it in foil and finished it off in the oven (took around 40 minutes more).

Anyhow, for a first cook, it came out alright. Had a nice smoke ring all the way around and an nice smokey flavour. The bark was a bit more moist than I expected(I can only assume that was due to the foil and finish off in the oven).

A couple of other notes - I burnt a lot more fuel than I expected and it burnt a lot quicker.
Also, dial thermometers are not to be trusted! There was a big variation between the Weber thermometer I used in the hood and the digital stick thermometer (that I normally use for analogue photography...)

For the next cook, I'll probably see if I can get a grate thermometer and work out what the best fuel is.

Cheers and thanks for looking!

[titch]

Hold your head up proud mate, I would be happy to eat that.
You did great

[hoffy]

Hold your head up proud mate, I would be happy to eat that.
You did great

Thanks! I have to admit, it did come out better than I expected, especially the smoky flavour. I only added a handful of wood chips, which was burnt within the first 1.5 hours. of the cook.

I now need to think of something else to try - maybe around Easter time.

Cheers

[Lovey]

That looks great Hoffy and the proof is in the eating.
You might want to try some smoking wood chunks, rather than chips which you can place along the early portion of the snake. After a while the meat won't take up any more smoke, so there's no point having the smoking wood in the later portion of the snake.
All the best.

[hoffy]

Thanks. I think we got the smoke just right. It smoked for around 1 1/2 to 2 hours and had a decent flavour.

Now I need to decide what I want to do next! I am thinking of something beef. I see I can get Brisket in the Central Markets for around $14 a KG. Not sure if that is a good price or not.

Cheers

[Davo]

As Titch says, I'd also be happy to dig into that....yummo!!

The fuel issue might be that as you stated you had a few big gaps in the kettle and even though you tired to block them, may have let in additional oxygen to make the fire burn hotter and quicker than you want.

I think that if you want to have more success out of this Kettle cooking, you might consider to buy a new one or better used one without all the gaps. The one you've got now could still hold well with high heat grilling but you need to have something to control how much air gets in there. With grilling it doesn't matter, the more air the better

There's just so much you can do in a Weber kettle....a very versatile BBQ.

Cheers

Davo

[hoffy]

Thanks Davo,

As for another cooker, I think if we get a handle on this, another cooker would definitely be on the wish list. I had looked at offset smokers and had even thought of getting one of those cheapies off of My Deal and such, but thought I would try like this first. I gather, though, that a cheapy offset might not be worth the hassle.

I might hit up gumtree and see if I can find a second hand one touch kettle for now, if its not too expensive. Either that, or I just keep on with plugging the gaps with Aluminium foil as I cook and find the right offset when I'm ready.

Cheers