First smoke - pork shoulder qview

  • Some of the links on this forum allow SMF, at no cost to you, to earn a small commission when you click through and make a purchase. Let me know if you have any questions about this.
SMF is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

ahains

Newbie
Original poster
Oct 11, 2014
9
10
Hi all,

I am currently quite full of some delicious pulled pork; the culmination of my first attempt at smoking. The hardware is a new MES 30 (gen 1) and AMNPS. Software was a 16 lb pack of boneless pork shoulder from costco, which sat one day with a rub I threw together.

I had a variety of mishaps to overcome:

1. I started the meat at 10pm on Friday @ 220, and at 5:30am on Saturday observed that the pellets had quickly gone out. I had a raging coal when I put it in, but hadn't pulled out the filler tube any (had the top port open fully).

2. At 6am I relit the AMNPS and pulled the filler tube out a bit, as well as the smoker tray.

3. At 8:30am I had to run some errands, but smoke was at a healthy rate so I thought I was in good shape.

4. Returned at 10:30am and found no smoke coming out. The reason was the AMNPS had completely burned empty. I found this very curious and thought maybe I somehow have bad pellets that are burning too quickly. I refilled it and relit with lighter & heat gun, and observed something very interesting - a tiny ember starting one row over from the ignition end. Apparently my heat gun blew a spark over there that caught, and this must be what happened earlier to burn through all of the pellets so quickly. This would burn through the fuel at 3x the normal rate, so the previous ~4-5 hours exhaustion makes sense.

5. I started checking the temperature probe at 1:30pm and observed it was starting to climb out of the stall.

6. Kept checking every 20-30 minutes and was happy to hit 188 at 2:45.

7. Next check I was down to 186. I looked at the unit and found I had set too low of a timer value and it had automatically shut off the heat. DRAT.

8. Turned the heat back on and FINALLY got to 195 at about 5:15pm. I was probing the one higher in the smoker and found that the lower one was actually 205. I had swapped positions earlier in the day, but it seems this difference in heat is something I'll have to pay attention to.

So I wrapped them in foil for 45 minutes, pulled 'em apart, and the family scarfed them down with some tasty buns.

I'm fairly confident that they would have more moisture if I hadn't inadvertently added an extra couple of hours at the end. I'm very glad that I chose pork shoulder for this first smoke as I needed every ounce of forgiving attitude that it had to offer. :) It is actually quite delicious and the family was telling me how happy they are that we started smoking.

Thanks for the wealth of info on the forum!

-Adrian



 
I read your "Roll Call" post and clicked on your link to this thread. The first thing I tell newbies is how much fun this forum is if you participate. Post your smokes, and reply to other posts and you can add a whole new dimension to your smoking projects. It's funny, but I have noticed that people from the city are more apt to want a set-it-and-forget-it smoker, while us country folks like the side-fire-box, slow-smoking, wood-burning rigs. Welcome, and I hope to see some of your Q-View in the near future.
a38.gif
 
Congrats on your first smoke!  I don't care if PP is perhaps the easiest of meats to smoke, I just love it!  Pretty hard to screw it up yet so easy to make it delicious and those who eat it don't need to know the difference.
 
Hi Adrian!!

Looks like you're learning more & more, and having some great tasting Pulled Pork!!
drool.gif


Yes, on the AMNPS, make sure you don't accidentally light all the rows, and also don't fill it to the top, or it could jump from row to row. I like to keep the top of the pellets about 1/4" to 3/8" from the top.

Also: When I set my MES to preheat, the first thing I do is set the time to 20.00 Hours. This will make it easy to calculate how long things take, and it'll never shut off on me too soon.

Bear
 
Nice , Adrian , you have a nice Butt there... good choice for your first smoking. You'll get better as you Smoke along with us...

Try some Chicken recipes (if you like Bird
icon_question.gif
 ) and in different ways. Chicken is one of the best learning foods to practice on , and cheap too
icon_exclaim.gif


By different ways , I mean - Beer can Style , Spatchcocked , pieces , wings , Quarters and so on...

Have fun with your new toy and . . .
 
SmokingMeatForums.com is reader supported and as an Amazon Associate, we may earn commissions from qualifying purchases.

Latest posts

Hot Threads

Clicky