My first cook on the Akorn is a 7 pound pork shoulder. I was going to do pork butt but all the local stores were out so I settled
for the pork shoulder.
I seasoned it last night with Meat Church BBQ Honey Bacon and injected it with Kosmos Q pork injection. I refrigerated it
overnight. This morning I fired up the Akorn with Royal Oak lump charcoal with a couple of chunks of cherry and hickory wood.
I am using a water pan with about 2 quarts of hot water. My target temperature is 230 to 250. The pork shoulder went into the
smoker at 8:30 AM.
After 5.5 hours the pork shoulder was at 167 and in the stall. I wrapped it with a light coating of Kosmos Q Dirty Bird Hot and
used about a cup of Kosmos Q Butter Bath in the wrap. I hadn’t opened the cooker to check on it before it hit the stall. I did
end up, about the 2-hour mark, rotate the Akorn out of the wind. We were getting some heavy winds and it was affecting my
temps. I didn’t have to readjust my vents to make up for the spike in temperature. Once it was out of the wind it took about
20 minutes to settle back in at 230.
It took another 3.5 hours to get to probe tender, which was temping at 204. Here it is pulled.
My plate with some store-bought frozen mac n cheese and corn.
First cook was great. The shoulder was definitely tender, juicy and has a nice smoke profile. I don’t like to chase temps so
yesterday I worked on vent positions with it and had it dialed in to where I wanted to cook today. I very easily could have just
hooked up my Cyber Q Guru as I have the adapter, but I want to do several cooks on it before I use the Cyber Q. I probably will
only use it on an overnight cook and even than as efficient as this thing is, I may not need it.
