LarryR Posted November 8, 2008 Report Posted November 8, 2008 Just did my second pork butt cook on the ceramic and I'm amazed at how moist the final product is, simply amazed. I did two butts Thursday night a Mr. Brown and a Chris Lilly's six time championship shoulder rub (no injection) and they were out of this world moist. The Mr. Brown finished first so we at that butt for dinner and I pulled the second butt after dinner. As I was pulling the second butt I was picking a piece here and a piece there and found myself wishing I hadn't just eaten as I wanted to eat more, I felt like a pork butt addict. Even my SO said, "stop eating!! Here are some PICTURES.
Conodo12 Posted November 10, 2008 Report Posted November 10, 2008 Hi Larry - Great pics! Looks like you had a very successful cook! So were these the butts that you tried to cook using the Stoker when it acted erratically? Did you get that worked out just yet?
LarryR Posted November 10, 2008 Author Report Posted November 10, 2008 Thanks. Yes same cook. I think the amount of wood I used and how it was positioned caused the erratic burn. I think I need to have my wood pieces cut into smaller pieces and work into the fuel ring.
Firemonkey Posted November 10, 2008 Report Posted November 10, 2008 You might be onto something with the wood theory. Now that I think about it, I see about a 10 degree spike when the fire catches a new chunk of wood, and that is with manual controls. I would expect that your log-sized wood would flame up easily when the fan hit it. I dont recall seeing any kind of temp jump when the wood pieces buried in the lump pile burned, only those on the outside edges.
Conodo12 Posted November 10, 2008 Report Posted November 10, 2008 Larry - I should have taken a closer look at the pic titled "Pit Ready". It appears that you are using your ceramic smoker as a hybrid stick smoker in the pic! I have been advised that the wood used for smoking should be no larger than a baseball. Typically, I think you can get away with 3 or 4 baseball sized chunks of smokewood and get the flavor that you are after. Also, as not to waste the smokewood, you may want to consider getting your pit up to your desired temp and then adding the smokewood. Let the white billowy smoke clear until you have a grey-blue, almost transparent smoke coming from your cooker. Now add your meat and proceed. I think you will find that you will get a cleaner smoke flavor and avoid any bitter taste associated with the white smoke. Nice looking cook! It appears that things ended well even though you had some issues with the fire. That's a sign of an experienced cook!
LarryR Posted November 12, 2008 Author Report Posted November 12, 2008 Yea I've mainly purchased smaller chunks of wood from Smokinlicous and just recently started buying the larger pieces that I found locally. I'm going to find something to split them down to the smaller chunks. Next time I'm going to bury the pieces in the fuel and see how that goes. I do this in my WSM and it works pretty well.
