Mary and Tom's Kitchen

Preface – The was the cook with the never ending stall.

Smithfield Shoulder Blade Pork Roast, 7.45 lbs with about a 1/4″ fat cap. Bought at Randalls on Saturday, March 4th, and soon after arriving at home trimmed the fat cap to showing a lot of meat and the rest very thin. Salted it with Kosher salt on all sides. Put it in the refer on a small pie pan covered with plastic wrap. 3:30 PM

March 5, Sunday

4:00 AM – Rubbed with Stubbs Hot Pork rub and left out to warm up some.

6:15 AM – Time = 0 hours – Butt has dry brined for almost 15 hours. Weber Kettle was started with 18 briquettes in the chimney. When almost grey dumped into one end of the SnS and un-lite briquettes added to just below top of SnS with small chunk of pecan over the hot coals. Added foil over lower grate and placed ChefAlarm opposite fire and soon there was a gentle flow of puffy smoke. Added Butt with the very thin fat-cap down and clamped down the dome.

The Kettle/SnS/Chefs Alarm worked great with occasional adjustment of the air dampers, additional briquettes after 5 hours and the occasionally all afternoon. Added small pecan chunk when the smoke was no longer visible. Often did not remove the lid for 1.5 hours.

Ended the smoke while stuck in the stall as we were hungry and the meat fibers in the outer parts seemed to break apart easily. Took it inside and opened it up. The outer areas pulled apart well but inside, and near the inside area next to the blade bone, it definitely was not done. That was 12 hours since it went on the smoker in the 215-250 range. The foil on the bottom grate had the edges turned up but so much fat fell there that it was maybe 1/2″ deep and flowed out to end up in the ash pan. It did not go beyond the stall even after 12 hours.

What we ate was good although the bark was very tough and dark–no doubt due to the 12 hour exposure to the heat and smoke.

Why? Re-read the info at Amazing Ribs.com (see link below) and given the amount of grease and water in the makeshift foil pan conclude that the roast was very moist and it was taking “forever” to dry out so the temp would go up to the target 203 degrees.

Tuesday  – Mary completed the cook in the oven starting about 4pm at 225 wrapped in foil. About 5pm she raised the temp to 250 and removed it about 6:45. It was done but not “pull apart” tender. Bark is almost black and hard.

Next Butt Smoke – Based on Amazing Rib’s page about the stall (click here) and to avoid having dry over-smoked bark, like we did this cook:

1. use the Texas Crunch foil wrap after 4-5 hours in with an 8 lb. butt, or:
2. On that page Meathead tells of a chef who:
   1. wraps tightly in foil when his bark is the right deep mahogany color;
   2. he keeps it in the foil until 190-200;
   3. takes it out of the cooker and unwraps [to let the bark dry some];
   4. then wraps in a towel and into the Cabro [towel would further dry the bark or at least absorb the evaporation that would occur with uinwrapped].
   5. In another article the advice was to catch the drippings from inside the wrap to make finishing sauce.

Afternoon the day before cut  a 9 pound bone-in pork butt in half. Rubbed on Memphis Dust and put in the frig in separate plastic bags. About 2 AM remember I had not sprinkled on salt for the dry brine so got up and did so.

2/7/2016 – Superbowl Day

1. 5:10 AM  – Counted and lite 20 Kingsford blue bag briquettes. First time to actually count them and found 20 is less of a pile than my past guesstimated piles.
2. 5:40 – Placed the two 4 lb. pork chunks on the grate after placing fully light coals in one end of SnS and filled it to near top with un-lite briquettes and a pecan chunk on the burning coals. The meat looked very wet now due to the salt added about 2 AM. Opened vents and it came up to 230 quickly so closed vents down so lower was at 1/4 mark and upper at a little less than 1/4. Ambient temp at this time was 36 degrees and very still.
3. 6:25 – Checked on it and grate temp is 233.
4. 6:55 – Grate temp was 246 and climbing very slowly. Closed top vent slightly. Sun is coming up soon.
5. 8:40 – Grate temp is 233 and has been within 5 degrees of that for the past hour+.
6. 10:50 – No smoke with grate temp at 240 so opened up and stoked fire moving pecan over coals. Checked internal temp with quick read and found at 155. A lot of juice came out both penetrations and chucks are wet with sweat.
7. 11:20 – Grate temp is 244. Added bacon wrapped jalapeno poppers around the chunks. Added another chunk of pecan.
8. Took Mary and her art stuff to the Studio in the Woods in the Woodlands for art week with her buddies. Had added more briquettes and wood chunks. Came back to Kelley’s for Piper’s 4th birthday party and went home twice to check.
9. 4:35 – Grate 243, internal was 185.
10. 6:15 – Grate 227 internal 178
11. ~7:00 PM came home to stay. Grate temp is still at 240s but internal is barely 180+. Noticed the fire has fully burned to the end where the probe is clipped so it is seeing more heat than is really in the overall kettle. Removed the meat. Very dark and the bark seems a little tough like it is dried out. Wrapped them in foil and left on a rack to cool.
12. Once cooled to warm I dug into one with two forks. The exposed meat strands that did not have any bark were all but black. But, once that layer was pulled back the meat below pulled apart nicely.
13. BTW – Some of the poppers were good and some were painful. See separate post.