Father's Day Cook

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SteerCrazy

Head Chef
Joined
Apr 26, 2006
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Kansas City
Well last year's father's day was a bust so I wanted to do it up right this year. My father passed in 1986 when I was 10 years old so I didn't have much to celebrate on Father's day until I became a father myself in 2001.

This father's day was special because my father-in-law wanted to get together to smoke some pork shoulders, ribs, and a ham for himself and he said he wanted to go through the process with me (prep, start the smoker, etc etc). I said no problem, I'll throw on some 'tester' briskets and let's plan it for father's day weekend.

My father-in-law is an excellent cook in the kitchen but wants to learn more about the smoker. I consider him a potential competition partner because he has the interest and desire to learn and help out.

I sent an E-mail to my family the Tuesday before Father's day inviting those to my house for a Father's Day Q. Not expecting many, surprisingly everyone (I have a large family so when I say everyone I mean about 30+ people, kids included) was excited to come.

We did 3 briskets, 2 pork shoulders, 4 slabs of ribs, 4lbs of beef short ribs and a 12lb fresh ham. Here are the pics;

Prep table in the garage. Briskets were injected, 2 with the same injection, 1 with a different injection, mistakingly, all 3 rubbed down with a Brisket Blend left over from last year that is OK but not my favorite.


12lb fresh ham. Lightly MUSTARD slathered and lightly coated with Slap Ya Mama seasoning. It's good stuff


Fresh ham and briskets...plus gotta get the smoke from the stacks in there



Shoulders, ham and briskets went on about 1am. I have got the smoker down now where it only takes me 30 minutes to get her up to temp
I regulated the dampers and added more fuel before I was comfortable enough to go to bed for about 3 hours. Went to bed about 2am.


Checking the shoulder with my thermapen....great tool if you have the cash to throw down on one of these babies.


Ham and briskets


Beef short ribs......these were an experiment that my father-in-law wanted to try....let's just say they should have stayed at the butcher or cooked properly braised and rib skirt meat for snackin.


Now I kept my temps stable between 225* and 235*. I kept my therm in that ham and from what I've read I should have let it reach 180*. It was a stubborn ham and I never foiled it. Once it hit 180* I pulled it, let it rest about 1 hour then sliced.

The ham was the most unedible piece of meat I have ever had. Drywall had more moisture. My father-in-law was disappointed but I had never done a ham like that.

Any suggestions on a FRESH ham would be appreciated. I've done ham's before but they were already cooked. Never done a fresh ham and would like to do another, maybe pull at 160*? Anyway.....

My sister took home a whole brisket and my brother took home a whole shoulder. There was plenty of leftovers, did some pit beans with the point of the briskets, turned out great. This being my 5th Fathers day I will say so far was my best. Hope all you father's had as good a day as I did, one I will remember for a long time.

SC
 
SteerCrazy said:
Now I kept my temps stable between 225* and 235*. I kept my therm in that ham and from what I've read I should have let it reach 180*. It was a stubborn ham and I never foiled it. Once it hit 180* I pulled it, let it rest about 1 hour then sliced.

The ham was the most unedible piece of meat I have ever had. Drywall had more moisture. My father-in-law was disappointed but I had never done a ham like that.

Any suggestions on a FRESH ham would be appreciated. I've done ham's before but they were already cooked. Never done a fresh ham and would like to do another, maybe pull at 160*? Anyway.....

To sum it up, YES TO THE PULL AT 160*!!!! The ham doesn't have near the internal fat that a shoulder does to keep it moist to that high of an internal temperature.
 
Man that looks fine SC, Slap you mama is comin up in the world. Did you find it localy?
 
Thats a good day..and alot of good looking grub...I would pull the ham at 160*-165* and consider brineing it...I would also trim most of the fat off the outside of it...at Q temps thats alot of fat for the smoke to penetrate...when I do my cured fresh ham's they take like 24-36 hrs...and the smoke still doesn't penetrate that far...
 
007bond-jb said:
Man that looks fine SC, Slap you mama is comin up in the world. Did you find it localy?

JB, I knew I had seen it at the local smoke and Q shop when I saw you usin it in one of your videos. They have the original and the white pepper blend. When I tasted it my Mama wasn't around so I couldn't slap her :LOL:

wittdog said:
Thats a good day..and alot of good looking grub...I would pull the ham at 160*-165* and consider brineing it...I would also trim most of the fat off the outside of it...at Q temps thats alot of fat for the smoke to penetrate...when I do my cured fresh ham's they take like 24-36 hrs...and the smoke still doesn't penetrate that far...

Going into this blindly and I had read somewhere else to pull it off at 180*
Brining sounds like the way to go and trimming the fat sounds good too. When I tasted it there was no smoke flavor to it.

Thanks for the advice, I wasn't gonna mess with another fresh ham, just stick with the double smoked hams, but I might give it a shot again.
 
One more thing...the muscle groups in a ham tend to be longer than those of a butt or shoulder even..and respond well to being more chopped if you plan on "pulling it"...
 
wittdog said:
One more thing...the muscle groups in a ham tend to be longer than those of a butt or shoulder even..and respond well to being more chopped if you plan on "pulling it"...

I think he just wanted it sliced. Smoky and sliced was all he cared about. Oh well. I might fire up my WSM and do a dedicated ham cook on that. Thanks again for the info
 
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