Hot coals, hot butt by Ben

Well, hadn't had the smoker going in a while, but my mom was briefly in town last weekend, and since she was the one who bought it for me as a birthday present, I thought it was long overdue. I started Saturday night which was a bit cool, though not freezing but not hot. A few things were different from the get go. 1) I added more coals initially, though still used the hole in middle approach, and 2) had really large hickory chunks, and a couple of those were on top which had some serious smoke initially (but died down about when meat went on). I used the same methods as previous with 2 ~8 lb butts from the nice folks at the Pig on Folly (already forgot their names, but they always hook me up, and do some good fat cap trimming). I didn't get home till 8, and injected and rubbed, and covered with saranwrap, but left out since they needed to warm up before the grill.

Here is the temp log (and note that the temps were higher, and stayed consistent through-out, very different than previously):

Time   Temp   Vents          Comments
8:00                                  got home and started
9:30                                  started coals (added a few more than 20 well burned, hot coals)
10-ish   280    50 all          Pork on
10:15    270    50,25,25
10:30    270    25---
11:00    250    no change
12:30    250    25--
7:00      245    25--            water out, so refill with hot; baste; add coals & wood chunk
7:30      180    50--
8:00      230    50,25,25     baste
9:00      230    no change    baste
10:00    230    0,25,25       baste
11:00    220    no change    add coals then baste
12:00    210    0,0,25         baste; meat @190;
12:30                                 wrap

eat at 5

So, this was much warmer than normal which is why I only did 14 h, and probably they were done at 12 h. The smaller of the two butts was burned/overly crispy on bottom, but overall, they were seriously moist and possibly the best that I have done.

Since I had only thought of cooking the meat, I invited Chris, Tracey, Billie, Nik and of course Mike over last minute with instructions for sides. So, with some wonderful squash casserole, potato salad, cole slaw, and the previously mentioned vinegar and honey sauces (as well a store bought mustard), we had a pretty good time.

And just for fun, here was Gus and Mom chillin' on the couch really getting into a movie.