- Jan 12, 2015
- 18
- 10
I had the opportunity to smoke my first 6.6 pound boston butt in the MES 30 yesterday. I woke up at 5:30am and started the unit when it was a balmy 16 degrees F outside. The smoker came up to temperature well enough and held steady. I hadn't cured it up to this point, but I let it sit at max temperature for a little while. I had rubbed the boston butt with a dry rub the day before, so it had about 20 hours with the rub in the fridge. I put it into the smoker, put water in the pan, set the temperature down to 225, and loaded it up with hickory. I smoked with hickory for 4 or 5 hours, and then switched to pecan, reloading every 2 hours because it just kept trailing smoke out of the upper vent without stopping. The butt only got up to about 170F after 10 hours, so I pulled it out. I noticed that the roast was very moist, and the fat cap was still quite intact. The meat, despite not being at the desired temperature, pulled well enough and there was more fat than I expected. The meat was tender and quite moist and tasty, but it did not have the amount of smoke flavor I was hoping for. I was skeptical that seasoning the smoker shouldn't matter for flavor, since the smoke should be providing that, but maybe I am wrong. I know that I have quite a bit of learning to do, but there will be a lot of tasty fun in practicing!