BBQ Marathon underway.

[Rhys]

Started prepping pork shoulders yesterday evening, and the first ones went on about 6PM Thursday. The last ones should come off between 10 and noon on Sunday. I really need to go to a bigger smoker.

I did the BBQ for the employee cookout for the retirement home my wife works at, and evidently it went over pretty well. One of the gals she works with just moved, and asked me to do the meat for the house warming party. They said to figure for 100-125 people, well I'm doing about 80 pounds worth of shoulders 3 at a time.

I made a few modifications to my existing offset pit to even out the temps. Previously I would have 75-100 degrees difference from one end to the other, now it's less than 20. The down side is that I lost quite a bit of capacity. If I do much more of this I'm either buying or building a bigger pit. If I go bigger I want enough room to do about 15-20 shoulders at a time.

 

[USAFDoug]

Re: BBQ Marathon underway.

Wow you are making me hungry! Put up some pictures!!

 

[Rhys]

Re: BBQ Marathon underway.

This is from a previous session earlier this summer.

 

[Switchblade]

Re: BBQ Marathon underway.

Nice!
I found that using the dampers I can get nice even temps in my smoke box.

 

[Cinch]

Re: BBQ Marathon underway.

Send me your address. I can be there in two hours!

 

[Rhys]

Re: BBQ Marathon underway.

I removed the bottom rack, and put in a plate of 11 gauge steel that extends almost the entire length of the smoker. I cut out a space at the end closest to the firebox for a bread pan to sit in. I keep that pan filled with water and cider vinegar to keep the humidity up. Overnight the biggest temp difference I observed was 25 degrees, and most of the time it was dead even. My cook time was significantly reduced from 18 or 20 hours to 14. If everything holds well I'll have everything cooked by noon tomorrow.

I noticed on this first batch that the smoke into the meat wasn't as heavy into the meat as it previously has been. I think that is mostly due to the airflow being changed, and having to run slightly higher temps in the fire box to get the right temps in the cooking chamber. I just put the next 3 on about 30 minutes ago, and we'll see what they do.


Cinch, Just head south and follow your nose. It's pretty obvious right now. Pisses off the bbq resteraunt here in town as this smells much better. He's using cottonwood which honestly does a better job than I thought it would, but I'm burning mesquite and mesquite lump charcole.