My second smoked butt...documenting the journey.

mdbannister · Dec 11, 2017

Hi all, I'm still new to smoking. I have done a few briskets on a gas grill, and I enjoyed that so I picked up an MES. On the MES, I have been playing with stuff for the last week. I did my first butt and chuck last week. The butt turned out great. The chuck was a bit dry, but ok. Then I tried smoking some italian sausage, but that didn't turn out nearly as well as when I grill it...it wasn't "bad" (IMO it's hard to ruin a good spicy italian sausage), but it wasn't juicy...I think I did something wrong. Anywho...practice makes perfect, so...

I'm doing my second pork butt today (Monday). I have a boneless 8lb. pork butt that I am marinating in a coca cola marinade. I've used this marinade on briskets that I've done and liked it, so now we'll see how it works on a butt.

The recipe I use is for the marinade is:

8 cups coca cola
1 cup worcestershire sauce
1 cup vegetable oil (I think olive oil would be better, but vegetable oil is all I had on hand)
2 tablespoons salt
6 cloves minced garlic
2 tablespoons Tony's Chachere's More Spice Seasoning

I plan to rub it after marinating before I smoke it. (I have a coffee/cumin/chachere's seasoning rub that I put together that I like pretty well for brisket, so I figured I'd use it for this too.) I'm planning to rub with mustard first to help the rub hold (or should I use oil instead?).

I'm planning to smoke it with a combination of hickory and mesquite at 250 degrees until it gets an IT of 205. Then it's pulled pork tacos for this one!

I figured I'd post this mostly to document what I'm doing, and I'll post my thoughts on the results, but if you guys have any opinions on it, please feel free to chime in. As I said, I'm still very much a "noob" so I am sure my way isn't necessarily best, and I may be making some BIG mistakes in here. I'd love to hear opinions from some of you guys who have been doing this for a while.

mdbannister · Dec 11, 2017

Been in the smoker for around an hour. :cool:

tallbm · Dec 11, 2017

Hi there and welcome!

It all sounds interesting. I can't wait to see the results!

As for the Italian Sausage, how long did you smoke it and at what temp? With sausage you have to worry about melting all the fat out of it. The result will be dry crumbly sausage.

This is why when people smoke cured sausage they cook at a temp between 160F-180F in general. I believe that for hot smoked sausages you just gotta manage trying not to loose too much fat pull when the Internal Temperature (IT) is hot, much like when grilling.

Best of luck! :)

mdbannister · Dec 11, 2017

tallbm said:
Hi there and welcome!

It all sounds interesting. I can't wait to see the results!

As for the Italian Sausage, how long did you smoke it and at what temp? With sausage you have to worry about melting all the fat out of it. The result will be dry crumbly sausage.

This is why when people smoke cured sausage they cook at a temp between 160F-180F in general. I believe that for hot smoked sausages you just gotta manage trying not to loose too much fat pull when the Internal Temperature (IT) is hot, much like when grilling.

Best of luck! :)

Thanks! That was definitely the issue I had. I don't remember what temp I had it on. I was reading someone who said to bring it to 195. I wanna say I had the temp at 225. I definitely think my issue was losing way too much fat.

tallbm · Dec 11, 2017

mdbannister said:
Thanks! That was definitely the issue I had. I don't remember what temp I had it on. I was reading someone who said to bring it to 195. I wanna say I had the temp at 225. I definitely think my issue was losing way too much fat.

The MES is notorious for the smoke temp probe and the meat probe being off. If you don't already have something like the Thermopro TP-20 dual probe thermometer I highly recommend you get one. I would say that 99% of us MES owners have one and I imagine 90%+ of people on this forum have some form of thermometer to cook by the Internal Temp (IT) of the meat rather than by time.

With that said, I think that if you took your fresh (not-cured) sausage to an IT of 160F (USDA recommended safe temp for ground meat) you could then pull it immediately and reduce the risk of melting too much fat. This same concept can be applied to grilling the sausage as well.

Again, you need to be able to tell the IT of the sausage to know you can pull it. Give this a try and let me know how your sausage turns out :)

GaryHibbert · Dec 11, 2017

I'll be watching.
Don't know just where you are or if youre a mesquite lover but mesquite can be very overpowering on pork. I tried it in a 50/50 mix with pecan on a loin and loved it. But that was only a 2 1/2 hour smoke. Don't know about a long smoke on a butt.
Gary

motocrash · Dec 11, 2017

md, I noticed in your pic that the CC probe is hanging in the middle of the smoker.It probably came with some kind of clip/holder.The closer to food level you can keep it the better.

Rings Я Us · Dec 11, 2017

Looks good there. It turned out ok?
What does oil in the brine or marinade do?

mdbannister · Dec 11, 2017

tallbm said:
The MES is notorious for the smoke temp probe and the meat probe being off. If you don't already have something like the Thermopro TP-20 dual probe thermometer I highly recommend you get one. I would say that 99% of us MES owners have one and I imagine 90%+ of people on this forum have some form of thermometer to cook by the Internal Temp (IT) of the meat rather than by time.

With that said, I think that if you took your fresh (not-cured) sausage to an IT of 160F (USDA recommended safe temp for ground meat) you could then pull it immediately and reduce the risk of melting too much fat. This same concept can be applied to grilling the sausage as well.

Again, you need to be able to tell the IT of the sausage to know you can pull it. Give this a try and let me know how your sausage turns out :)

Thanks! I am using a Thermopro TP08 (dual probe). I'll try pulling at 160 on the next batch. That sounds like a better plan.

mdbannister · Dec 11, 2017

GaryHibbert said:
I'll be watching.
Don't know just where you are or if youre a mesquite lover but mesquite can be very overpowering on pork. I tried it in a 50/50 mix with pecan on a loin and loved it. But that was only a 2 1/2 hour smoke. Don't know about a long smoke on a butt.
Gary

Thanks for the tip. I did hickory on my last one, and this one is a blend of mesquite/hickory. I actually usually prefer mesquite, but that was from grilling (I like to grill over mesquite chunks). This is actually my first time using it in the smoker. Would it be best to not add chips anymore at some point because of it being overpowering?

motocrash said:
md, I noticed in your pic that the CC probe is hanging in the middle of the smoker.It probably came with some kind of clip/holder.The closer to food level you can keep it the better.

Thanks! Yes, I do have the clip, but I hadn't put in bc of laziness (and not realizing it was important). I'll add it right now.

Rings Я Us said:
Looks good there. It turned out ok?
What does oil in the brine or marinade do?

Haven't finished it yet, but the marinade seemed to work. I don't actually know why the recipe called for oil. I just went with what I found and added the Tony Chachere's seasoning to it (I'm a Louisiana boy, so Cajun seasoning goes on just about everything I cook. Haha!).

SmokinAl · Dec 11, 2017

We love Cajun flavored anything & Cajun PP sounds delicious!
Al

tallbm · Dec 11, 2017

mdbannister said:
Thanks! I am using a Thermopro TP08 (dual probe). I'll try pulling at 160 on the next batch. That sounds like a better plan.

Sounds good.
Also you will notice a lot of people talk about the AMNPS (A-Maze-N Pellet Smoker) which is a metal tray device you put pellets or saw dust in and it burns in a snake/maze like pattern for up to around 12 hours or so.
Most of us MES guys use it so we have a set and forget smoking setup from temp to smoke generation.

I LOVE using Lumberjack 100% Mesquite pellets in it for my brisket and WOW perfect Mesquite smoke (TBS - Thin Blue Smoke) so you run much less of a chance of over smoking with bad mesquite smoke that is often produced with other methods :)

mdbannister · Dec 11, 2017

tallbm said:
Also you will notice a lot of people talk about the AMNPS (A-Maze-N Pellet Smoker) which is a metal tray device you put pellets or saw dust in and it burns in a snake/maze like pattern for up to around 12 hours or so.

YEP! I discovered the AMNPS through some of the posts on here. I'm excited about that one! Mine is coming today! No more adding chips every hour to 1.5 hours! :D

tallbm · Dec 11, 2017

mdbannister said:
YEP! I discovered the AMNPS through some of the posts on here. I'm excited about that one! Mine is coming today! No more adding chips every hour to 1.5 hours! :D

Oh yeah, it's a game changer.
Many also make the "Mailbox Mod" but plenty of others just roll with the AMNPS inside their MES.

In either case, once you get it sorted out for your setup you will be rockin and rollin babysit-free!

Here is my setup:

mdbannister · Dec 12, 2017

Pulled the butt off the smoker at 205 degrees. Getting it off was tricky because it was falling apart. :D Success!!

Rested it wrapped in foil in a cooler for about 2 hours (like I do with a brisket) until guests arrived.

So here's the results!

The tacos we made with it were a hit! I'll definitely be using this recipe again.

tallbm · Dec 12, 2017

Congrats on the success, looks like it was a hit!! :)

GaryHibbert · Dec 14, 2017

Well that sure turned iut great!! Nice job.
Gary

My second smoked butt...documenting the journey.

Smoke Blower

Smoke Blower

Legendary Pitmaster

Smoke Blower

Legendary Pitmaster

Epic Pitmaster

Master of the Pit

Smoking Guru

Smoke Blower

Smoke Blower

SMF Hall of Fame Pitmaster

Legendary Pitmaster

Smoke Blower

Legendary Pitmaster

Smoke Blower

Legendary Pitmaster

Epic Pitmaster

Similar threads

Hot Threads

Featured Blackened Rockfish...