Memorial Day Saturday: Smoked 3 Pork Butts / Made some jerky

BUTTS:
A buddy of mine and I went to Peoria Packing (wow, what a great frickin place!) Fri. morning and picked up 3 butts. One was a over 7 lbs; the second over 9 lbs.; the third over 10 lbs. We did the cook on Sat. so, as you locals may recall, it rained on and off all day. I think it certainly affected the cook, but all worked out either way.

The 7 punder finished at around 13 hour mark. However, the 9 pounder took 15 hours and the 10 pounder at 17 hours. The butts were plateauing for long periods of time, except for us it was in the 170's and 180's FOREVER.

The only thing we couldn't do was have one that was more well done (for comparison sake) than the others. They were all about the same. We were going to do that with the last one but it was pretty much falling apart, and it was after midnight, I'd had too much beer, and I was exhausted. But man, did it turn out great!

PICS:

This, was at the 5 hour mark.


This is at the 7 hour mark

Finally, here are some pics of the leftovers...(People were so hungry, I didn't have time to get the finished product before carving, while carving, etc,)



Notice the pieces with the badass smoke rings from the last 2 pics. People have seen these pics and actually thought that those pieces looked undercooked b/c of the pronounced rings. I quickly pointed out that those pieces were really the most well done because they were from the outside of the butt.


JERKY:


Pictured above is my attempt to make jerky ala Alton Brown's method. If you haven't tried this recipe, it's very cool and very easy. On the foodnetwork site, they have it classified as "Expert," but it's really not that difficult. Anyway, I strongly reccomend giving this a shot if you're a jerky fan. The recipe calls for flank but we did one flank and one strip steak. They're very comparable in texture and taste. Sorry about the one pic--I have more at home but I'm at work now. If interested in more pics; closeups of the jerky, etc., please let me know and I will oblidge.

I posted these results on the Wiviott's site (the butts were my Step 5) but I decided to post my results here too b/c I wanted some feedback on the cook times from some of you who may be more experienced. I also thought passing on the jerky info/recipe would be a good idea. Anyway, what do you guys think about the cook times on those butts? Was it the rain? The temp seemed to stay steady @ 200 degrees everytime we looked.

thakkar wrote:[insert graduation music as background while reading]

Thakkar,

Congrats, nice job on Step 5, you faced an obstacle or three and saw it through to a tasty conclusion.

17 hours, while not unheard of, is longish for pork butt on the WSM, from your pictures, nice pics by the way, it seems as if the butts were partially blocking airflow, which tends to suppress the temperature in the same fashion as closing the bottom vents.

In reference to Saturday's weather, rain, particularly when combined with wind, will have an effect on overall WSM cooking temp. Though, in the absence of near hurricane conditions, once started the WSM chugs along just fine in the rain.

In future cooks it's best to use both grates rather than block airflow or, in the event you wish to smoke 6 large butts at the same time, bunch them leaving space along the very outside rim for air circulation.

I prefer using butts of approximately the same size and, also, with the bone as centered as possible. The bone radiates heat out though the meat and a centered butt bone assists in even cooking.

Once again, nice job.

Enjoy,
Gary
Wiviott.com

the sleeve wrote:
JERKY:

Pictured above is my attempt to make jerky ala Alton Brown's method. If you haven't tried this recipe, it's very cool and very easy.

I notice his recipe doesn't call for any salt, so all the salt would come from just the Worcestershire and soy sauce. Is that enough to make it safe? The recipe refers to the marinade as brine, but brine contains much more salt than this mixture would have. Then he says to store it in a cool dry place for two to three months. Not even in the refrigerator!

Yeah, it's weird to me too but it sure turned out good. I actually saw this first on Good Eats, the show. On the show, he said that you can just store it in a container, like a screw-top tupperware. He even said that it would last about 40 years! I really think he was serious too.

What he said to avoid was ziplocks b/c of the moisture build-up which would obviously lead to mold. I've had it outside in such a container since Sun. morning and everything's been fine.

As far as the salt, I think your assumption is correct that the sauces contain enough salt because he actually says NOT to marinate the strips for more than 6 hours b/c then they will taste too salty.

you should try and catch that episode if it's on again.