So this weekend, I decided to smoke my biggest butt, about 8.97 lbs. Decided for the same ol same ol and went with my usual seasonings along with the brine.
For those who have asked about the brine and what it does. It #1 imparts flavor. Namely salt and molasses. The salt goes all the way to the bone.
Ok, so I started it around 10 am and got it to heat at around noon. Smoked nicely most of the day. Then, in the afternoon around 2-3 pm, I decided to put a bit more wood on. A nice sized pile in my cast iron pie pan (imagine the size of a pie plate, that's the size). Sorry guys, no pictures this time
Anyways, the smoker started pushing out plumes of smoke and was really humming along. Nice temp of 225 or so. So I took a small nap and woke up at around 5-6 pm and went and checked it. It was super hot, around 275 degrees. The bowl on top was hot to the touch and hard to remove, but remove it I did (big mistake).
My idea was to vent the pit to cool it down really quicky. Bad idea. It allowed much more oxygen in and, after looking at it for about 3 minutes a drop of grease ignited the entire pan.
The fire enveloped the butt first and foremost along with the handles of the grate that it was cooking on. I urgently asked the neighbor for a plate and huge fork to get the meat off of the fire pillar it was currently sitting in.
After about a full minute and a half, I grabbed it from one end, barehanded, and drug it off and into the lid of the smoker while waiting for the plate.
I let the fire burn down a bit, dumped the burning embers into my small Webber grill and lidded it, put some wood back in the pan, and got back to smoking. It finished up at around 10pm that night.
The taste was not good. The bottom was pretty much ruined from the burning and the flavor was kind of rampant. That being said, still edible.
My first pit fire. Learned a lot lol.
For those who have asked about the brine and what it does. It #1 imparts flavor. Namely salt and molasses. The salt goes all the way to the bone.
Ok, so I started it around 10 am and got it to heat at around noon. Smoked nicely most of the day. Then, in the afternoon around 2-3 pm, I decided to put a bit more wood on. A nice sized pile in my cast iron pie pan (imagine the size of a pie plate, that's the size). Sorry guys, no pictures this time
Anyways, the smoker started pushing out plumes of smoke and was really humming along. Nice temp of 225 or so. So I took a small nap and woke up at around 5-6 pm and went and checked it. It was super hot, around 275 degrees. The bowl on top was hot to the touch and hard to remove, but remove it I did (big mistake).
My idea was to vent the pit to cool it down really quicky. Bad idea. It allowed much more oxygen in and, after looking at it for about 3 minutes a drop of grease ignited the entire pan.
The fire enveloped the butt first and foremost along with the handles of the grate that it was cooking on. I urgently asked the neighbor for a plate and huge fork to get the meat off of the fire pillar it was currently sitting in.
After about a full minute and a half, I grabbed it from one end, barehanded, and drug it off and into the lid of the smoker while waiting for the plate.
I let the fire burn down a bit, dumped the burning embers into my small Webber grill and lidded it, put some wood back in the pan, and got back to smoking. It finished up at around 10pm that night.
The taste was not good. The bottom was pretty much ruined from the burning and the flavor was kind of rampant. That being said, still edible.
My first pit fire. Learned a lot lol.
