Smoked pork shoulder

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justind0301

Newbie
Original poster
Jun 29, 2014
14
10
So I have a few questions regarding if this is normal or not. A few weeks ago I smoked a pork shoulder at about 9 pounds. I started at about 5:30am assuming it would take a really long time. I have the electric masterbuilt smoker. I went back to sleep and woke up and the internal temp was a lot warmer than I anticipated when I woke up. It never seemed to have a stall or anything and before I knew it had reached 201 internal temp after roughly 8 hours or so. It "looked" done concerning the meat aspect but didnt have the dark bark around it. I'll post a picture below. This was done cooking at 225 degrees.

I meant to write this sooner when the times were fresh in my mind, but I had gotten busy so some times may not be spot on. Today i started another shoulder, this time at 250 based on a thread recently posted, to try and get that crispy bark around it. It has been about 4 hours and the internal temp is reading 180 already. This is based on the thermometer that comes with the smoker as a meat probe. Anyone have any advice or is this pretty normal? Thanks for any help.

 
First off, did ya verify your therm is accurate ? Doing the boiling water test will check your probes for accuracy !
 
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If you are going by the MES control panel for your cooking temp and the meat probe.They are most likely wrong, you need to get a Maverick or some other digital probe, to find out what the true temps are.As for bark I do not see any kind of rub on that meat,it needs a rub.
 
I did not check the accuracy but I am starting to think that's the issue.What's the best valued thermometer to use? As for rub, I did rub it in mustard and fully coated a dry rub on it.
 
If you are going by the MES control panel for your cooking temp and the meat probe.They are most likely wrong, you need to get a Maverick or some other digital probe, to find out what the true temps are.As for bark I do not see any kind of rub on that meat,it needs a rub.
Yup...don't trust the control panel. When I was using our MES40 I would set the temperature at 225* and monitor only the meat with a Thermoworks TW8060. When I did try to get the cooking chambers temperature dialed in I had nothing but a headache. Fact of life...it's temperature control and the among it floats leaves a bit to be desired.
 
went ahead and ordered the maverick 733, only ten bucks more and comes with the bear claws
 
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