This was my first official smoke and, realistically, only my second real smoke in many years. I have done ribs in a small gas smoker as well as steaks, but that was it for years. 2 years ago I did an attempt on a brisket for family for my graduation but I cannot tell how it was - it was gone before I got home!
I picked up the Red Box smoker at a local BBQ retailer in PA at their open house/ Ironman competition. There were 54 competitors out there and it was a good time. Since their original price was better than anywhere else, the 10% off discount made it even better.
New out of the box
I found picnic shoulders on sale for .99/ lb and bought a 10lb piece of meat and gave it a try. My family and I have fallen in love with Sweet Swine O Mine seasoning (coincidentally what got me looking at their smoker in the first place) and I was able to get the shoulder set up and seasoned for the smoker the night before. I did not try to inject anything in it. I have done it with a turkey but need to find a couple of good recipes for pork shoulder/ butt.
Prepped up and ready to smoke
Got the smoker running and ready to go by 5pm. The goal was to have it done by 10am today. It went well for the most part but I realized I had nothing to get the fire box out with so off to HD for gloves and a pair of inexpensive plyers. One thing I noticed was that about the 8 hour mark, the fire was going out mainly because all of the ash. I emptied the box and used the coals left to restart a new batch (only did about 1/2 that time) and got it going again. For the first 6 hours or so, I smoked the meat. I had underestimated the rate of burn on the wood and did not have enough soaked up to use. It was close to 150 though so I was not sure it would have done much more smoking at that point anyway.
I was concerned that the temp gauge on the top of the unit was reading at 200 while my Maverick gauge was reading 225 at the rack near the meat. I believed the digital gauge and hoped for the best. Because of the burn time on the smoker for the first round of charcoal, I decided to go to bed and just check on it 4 hours later (I had plenty of water in the pan and left the smoker vent open wide to keep the heat up. Turns out 4 hours was too long and the temp in the box dropped to 167 and the meat at the 12 hour mark was also 167.
I got the heat back up by dumping the ash and starting new coals. By 8:30am, the meat was at 192 and ready to be pulled.
Just out of the smoker.
I had read about the FTC method previously and gave that a shot while I took the kids to school. I was back in time to pull the pork and make the sauce. There seemed to be some decent smoke ring to it and the bark was pretty good. My oldest got a taste prior to school and enjoyed it.
Final Product.
Overall, it came out pretty good. It was pretty moist with good flavor. I am planning to use a Piedmont sauce recipe I found online but I believe the girls will use the Sweet BB Rays we have in the fridge while I am at work.
If you have any suggestions on how to improve, please let me know. I had some issues with getting the temp to stay at 225. It ranged from 220-250 most of the time. I also had major issues with the ash putting out the fire a couple of times. Of course, ideas on what to use the pulled pork on (besides the sandwiches tonight) would be cool... I think I saw one for Pizza....
Thanks! A few more attempts and I might be willing to try my hand at brisket.....
