# Butts VS the MES



## sound1 (Jul 23, 2012)

What was I thinking?

When a local charity asked me to smoke up "some" pulled pork for a fund raising event, I figured why not, How much do ya need?  Oh, somewhere between a hundred and 150 pounds and by the way, the event will be on a weekend that you will be gone.

My mind started spinning with the logistics on how we were going to pull this off without knowing the crowd size and not being in the same state... throw out all the planning/portioning rules. Experimentation begins.

Using old tried and true methods, smoked up a butt, pulled and then vacuum sealed three ways (1. Dry  (2. With the meat juices added  (3. With the juices and a finishing sauce. The packages were then frozen.

The thinking here is that the folks serving the meal could have a large stock pot of boiling water on a turkey fryer burner, throw the frozen bags in to heat up the meat as needed, leaving the rest frozen for later events.

With the boiling water on the stove, we heated and tested...

Option 1, ended up tasting flat even with the juices added later.

Option 3, with a vinegar based finishing sauce added. seemed to make the meat mushy.

Option 2 had the best texture and flavor, in fact, the flavors melded throughout the meat and adding the finishing sauce just stepped it up a notch.

OK, the next step. Lets put the little MES40 and the AMPS to the test. At this point I am a bit concerned about the thermal mass of all this meat and could have put a bit more in but decided to try two batches of 8 butts. 













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Basking in all those wonderful herbs and spices













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Turning pellets back to sawdust in an old blender. Being a person of altitude, (6700 ft) the pellets tend to go out, even when left to light/burn on the table. During a "hot" smoke they do fairly well but still go out every now and then. The AMPS does either dust or pellets, and this being an overnight smoke, just figured I would play it on the safe side and go with the dust.













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A great little device Todd came up with. I have never had a load jump the rows at temps of 240+. Between this and the alarm/remote features of the Maverick, no worries about doing an all night run.













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Started out putting the meat in pans. I was a bit worried about the cascading juices ruining the pieces below. But decided against it and placed the meat directly on the racks and placed an old broiler pan under the bottom rack to catch all that liquid gold. I have all kinds of hotel pans and when cooking up to four butts, I use half pans with wire racks in them. *Note to Masterbuilt:* Just a couple of inches wider would allow the use of commonly used pans ( up to 8 half pans or 4 full) and allow for smoke/heat flow!! 













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Reusable, easy to foil and clean.

First batch done, and the MES/AMPS combo came through like "The Little Engine That Could". About 20 hours, the stall wasn't as bad as I was anticipating, overall, about as routine as any smaller batches I have done.

The final product came out awesome... juicy, pulled evenly/easily, a dark rich colored bark, and the flavor is awesome. Went in at 75.5 lbs. Came out at about 46, right on the mark for the 40% shrinkage rule.

Sorry I didn't get pics of the finished product, I will try to get some from batch two. When news got out that the first batch was ready to come out, it got a little crazy around here. I know, hard to believe, helpers came out of the woodwork to help pull and vacuum pack the stuff. Believe me, at that point, the help was quite welcome, added a bit to the shrinkage though.


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## gunner65 (Jul 23, 2012)

Wow that is a lot of meat.  

Sent from my MB865 using Tapatalk 2


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## jarjarchef (Jul 23, 2012)

Funny how helpers = more shrinkage........... I have the same issue.

Everything looks great. Yes I agree the smoker manufactures need to get on the same page as the pan producers........ Very frustrating when you need to cram things in. But maybe they were not taking into account how when you have a smoker and do a great job of it you will push your gear to the max... :grilling_smilie:


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## sound1 (Jul 24, 2012)

jarjarchef said:


> Funny how helpers = more shrinkage........... I have the same issue.
> Everything looks great. Yes I agree the smoker manufactures need to get on the same page as the pan producers........ Very frustrating when you need to cram things in. But maybe they were not taking into account how when you have a smoker and do a great job of it you will push your gear to the max...


Interesting how that shrinkage thing works
	

	
	
		
		



		
		
	


	





   But I really cant complain, It's not like a working gig, I volunteered and they purchased the product and the help would be nice during the second load.

That pan thing is frustrating, the depth is perfect, the width is just off by a bit. Half pans are the perfect size for a 10lb butt. Must be a metric thing, tis made elsewhere


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## smokinhusker (Jul 24, 2012)

Great looking butts and wow that's a load of meat!!!! I freeze my PP the same as your option 2 and it comes out as good as when I originally made.

Yep they sure do need to get on the same page for those pans.


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## hickory larry (Aug 4, 2012)

*  Went in at 75.5 lbs. Came out at about 46, right on the mark for the 40% shrinkage rule*

Very nice!! I am getting ready to embark on a similar venture,Helping to cook for a fund raiser and the host had said they wanted 200lbs of PP . I didn`t think that there would be that much shrinkage in the cooking process. Good to know it will be helpfull when making the original purchase of the meat.


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## glocksrock (Aug 6, 2012)

Looks great, that's a lot of pork. Glad the MES 40 was able to maintain temps with being loaded up so full.


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## chef jimmyj (Aug 6, 2012)

It is awesome to know the MES 40 can handle that load. What temp did you set the MES at and...Where you put the AMNPS? It's not in your pic or is it in the Water Pan...JJ


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## sound1 (Aug 6, 2012)

I was worried about that too. But the unit shined!! The AMNPS ended up on the rails as usual. To maintain 225-230 on a calibrated probe mounted about dead center of the unit, I had to set the MES at about 240. No water in the pan, I have found that wrapping the pan and leaving a foil "wing" off the back right of the pan deflects the heat from the element away from the units thermocouple (right side just above the element) creates a cross flow and therefore more even heat throughout the box.


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