3/14/2021 – Kelley, Piper, and Olivia arrive this afternoon to visit for Spring Break week. Like in Houston, we smoked Pork Butts knowing they will come over for dinner. This was the second time the old Masterbuilt Smoker quit during the early part of the smoke and the meat was moved to the Web Kettle.
Bought a two-pack of Butts at Rouses that weighed 18 lbs. Cleaned off the fat and cut them into clods cleaning off fat and silverskin that was inside. Salted it then rubbed them heavily with 6POGS. Cut off all the thin edges and small chunks to make chorizo. Added a lot of 6POGS to the Tasso chunks. The meat was out of the refrigerator for a total of about 1.5 hours when it went into the smoker.
Thankfully, we had cleaned the grates and pan last time and so it was easy to get the smoker preheating up to about 230°.
Dehydrated the mesquite pellets in the microwave. They almost caught on fire but did not and burned very evenly for this smoke. The process that worked well was:
- 2 minutes then took outside to steam so Mary would not be upset with the smell;
- another 55 seconds and again took outside;
- another 45 seconds and again took outside.
- put them into the pellet tray, took them to the barn, and lit them with the torch.
8:15 AM – Started the butt clods and tasso chunks in the preheated MasterBuilt Electric Smoker set to 253° with the pellets making a small amount of smoke that is not very visible from the top port. The idea related to the top grate for the tasso chunks on a grilling mat is to be in the lower heat so they could stay longer to get more smokey.
9:00 – Smoker quit heating. Removing the back and checking wires did not fix it. Set up the Weber Kettle and moved the meat there. The large flat piece did not fit so Mary vac-packed and froze it. Had the tasso chunks scattered in between and on top of the large clods. The kettle came up to 200° to 240° quickly.
1:00 – Removed tasso as they look well done with a lot of smoke. Smells great.
~2:00 PM – Wrapped the clods in aluminium foil and put it into the convection over with the probe set to turn it off at 200°.
