First BIG Smoke

[MattS]

This weekend will be my first REAL BIG smoke. I have never had my big smoker filled to the gill before for a large event. I have done parties for a few dozen, done hogs and so on. But nothing in the hundreds and hundreds. Excited and nervous.

Tonight starts the prep work. The kids and I made a run to Sams for some supplies. I need charcoal and seasonings for the rub. I am planning on either 24 or 32 butts. I am thinking its going to be 32. I thing my rig will hold it all. Anyway, we picked up everything at sams and started putting together a bucket of rub tonight. My daughter likes to cook and mixing spices so she helped. But the boy couldn't miss an episode of Bed 10 so he wouldn't help.



Luckily mamma wasn't home to see the mess. The butts will show up Thursday night where the fun will begin. The wife said she would help get all the meat rubbed and ready for the Friday morning smoke.

[Frank_Cox]

Good luck man! Hope everything goes as planned

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[Tom_Heath]

That's awesome man, gotta love it when the kids want in on it too.

It's gonna be a piece of cake, don't stress, enjoy yourself and it will all turn out fine.

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[MattS]

Now the fun part begins. Spent 3 hours last night prepping 32 frozen pork butts. All trimmed, sauced and rubbed. This morning they are all barely on the smoker.

Sun is rising and thunder in the background. what a way to start a good day.

[Frank_Cox]

That's always what happens man, same thing happened to me the other night.

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[Tom_Heath]

Ya just gotta love a summer storm. So I take it that it was a tight fit.

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[MattS]

Just my luck. One big nasty storm came rolling thru earlier. Crap blowing everywhere, temp in smoker falling and just a mess. Slowly getting the temp back up now but with the butts still partially froze, its taking a while to get up to temp.

Tom, Yes that was a tight fit to say the least. I should have pulled out a couple other smokers but I am glad I didn't. That would have really been a mess with the storm this morning.

[MattS]

lesson learned today, I can put to much meat in the smoker. Having a very hard time getting temps up. This is going to be a real LOW and SLOW.

[Frank_Cox]

what usually happens to me is i get about halfway through and when the butts are coming up to temp the smoker temp climbs. so be watching your temp LOL

[Tom_Heath]

WOW man, sorry to hear about the tragedy of the storms..........That just sucks.

Something to think about is, and this is not me but rather that I have heard others do.

Is to load the butts in shifts. Maybe load 1/4 or 1/3 of them about 30 minutes apart, or even an hour.
It makes sense to me, no cold load all at once. And it also gives a break when its time to work on them. That way you aren't trying to pull and wrap all of them at once.
I have done this with ribs and it really helped out a bunch. We did just over 300 slabs.

[MattS]

Ya, there are a few things I would have done different but that is the why there is a first for everything. All and all it took 17 hours to finish all of them. I was able to pull a couple here and there that made temp quick. But that was only 4 out of the 32. I didn't foil any of them as there was so many and I didn't want to leave the smoker open for long. Thru those 17 hours, the fire box side of the smoker only got up to 230 and that was at about hour 15. The opasite side got a lot higher temps as everything down there got done first. That is one thing I learned, I didn't know that the farthest spot away from the fire box is the hottest spot on this rig. For the most part I was struggling to get the smoker over 210 the whole time. About hour 9 I fired up the propane burner in me fire box and that helped get the temp up. So now I know my limits with this rig and will know better next time. I thought about getting my other two smokers out this morning and splitting things up. I wish I would have, but it would have been a bigger mess when the storm hit this morning.


This pic is when I was pulling all remaining butts off the smoker. They are all wrapped and resting till morning for a pork pullin party.

[Frank_Cox]

looks good! i enjoy doin large cooks like that. even better when you can serve right outta the smoker! people really like to see the whole thing in operation.

[Tom_Heath]

That looks freaking FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!

[MattS]

Well the event was a huge successful failure. Cooked enough pork for 500 sandwiches and only sold maybe 100. It was too hot out for the crowd to show up. Talk about a bunch of left overs. BUT, everyone raved about the pork and we had people at the end of the night buying pans full. A lot of people are still asking about buying a bunch of it today. So all and all it was a success. It was all for St. Jude, so I don't mind either way. They still made money off it and all will give all my time and equipment to that cause whenever called upon.

[Frank_Cox]

what does st.jude do? It's great when you can do what you enjoy to do and support a great cause!

[MattS]

You have never heard of St. Jude?? It provides care for children with cancer.

[Frank_Cox]

oh yeah! I actually have... I just had a brain fart LOL

[Tom_Heath]

Awesome deal Matt. It's always good to hear that everyone liked it.

Ribs aren't to bad of a deal either. When we do fundraiser we sell whole uncut slabs for 20 a piece. Normal price is 15 but for a good cause 20 is always good. People don't mind a few bucks.extra when its for a good thing.

Fundraiser are a blast.

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[Gizmo]

I'm very glad it worked out in the end after fighting the elements that way. Very classy thing you did for St Jude there Matt.

[k.a.m.]

MattS, that was a cooker full of Goodness right there. Awesome cook for a very worthy cause. Nicely done.