Pulled Pork

[Phlashster]

Hi, 

So nothing for ages and then two cooks in as many days. Very happy. 😀

This morning i went to the local Morrisons and purchased a full pork shoulder. As full as they have anyway. They come in all trimmed up. 

They then just cut them to smaller sizes and repackage for sale.  (BTW had a chat with the 'butcher' about briskets. He showed me how they get them. Looks like the flat only and pre-rolled/tied. Again, they just cut them smaller and put out on sale. When asking about a packer, point and flat muscles, the 'butcher' had no idea what i meant. Sigh)

Anyway, a 4.5kg skin on boned shoulder was coming home with me. 

Here it is after a trim (968g of fat and skin) and rubbed with Butt Massage  

For scale sake, here it is on the Pro Q Frontier. 

It went on at 250F around 10:15 this morning. a very light smoke on this one deliberately. Cherry wood and not that much.

 At about 16:30 it was starting the stall, so i wrapped in foil. Finished at 200F Internal ish around 19:50. 

 

I pulled it in a tray with the juices from the foil. No sauce, no seasoning. It was the most tender pork i have done yet. Great texture and moistness, superb bite. Great flavour, nice pork taste, light smoke. Might go a bit heavier next time, but not too much.

Half went to the next door neighbour. The rest is being eaten tomorrow/vacuum packed and frozen. 

Here is my Smartfire graph. Very happy with how it all performed today.  

A great result and very little work. Not a vent was touched during the cook. All adjustments by Smartfire. Awesome. 

I would do exactly the same again. 

 

Phil.

 

[sotv]

Looks great, great minds think a like. Just put a 3kg Morrisons shoulder of pork on my ProQ to test out my new smartfire with a cook through the night.

Got a basket full of the new Big K Coconut Shell Briquettes to try for the first time as well. Estimated about 3kg in total of unlit and half a chimney of lit charcoal briquettes

Put the lit ones on about 2110  and as of now 2200 the temp seems to be hovering around 210F with the fan on 100% The 2 bottom vents are closed (just opened one up and it is climbing, will close it off when it reaches 225F)  Put the lit charcoals on the far side of the basket away from the fan.

This is a trial go and I want to practice with it, pork shoulder is very forgiving so if it takes a while to get to 225F (my target temp) not to worried, so long as it holds it once it gets there by 11pm as I don't want the fan on at 100% through the night May drop it down to 210F if it doesn't hold 225F by 11pm

The smartfire is about 120ft away from my router and although showing a weak signal is still operating ok whereas my Maverick struggled and often dropped the wifi signal at that distance

Must resist the temptation to watch it on my phone all night, as it will defeat the object 😀

As I say 1st time trial so big learning curve, but hopefully it will be a success.

p.s. My Morrisons will trim off the rind and retie it for me, if I ask them. You may want to do your own, lot easier and tidier than my efforts if I ask them.

p.p.s Does your smartfire blower sit over a vent hole or more towards the middle where the rivet on the daisy wheel is?

[Phlashster]

5 hours ago, sotv said:

Looks great, great minds think a like. Just put a 3kg Morrisons shoulder of pork on my ProQ to test out my new smartfire with a cook through the night.

Got a basket full of the new Big K Coconut Shell Briquettes to try for the first time as well. Estimated about 3kg in total of unlit and half a chimney of lit charcoal briquettes

Put the lit ones on about 2110  and as of now 2200 the temp seems to be hovering around 210F with the fan on 100% The 2 bottom vents are closed (just opened one up and it is climbing, will close it off when it reaches 225F)  Put the lit charcoals on the far side of the basket away from the fan.

This is a trial go and I want to practice with it, pork shoulder is very forgiving so if it takes a while to get to 225F (my target temp) not to worried, so long as it holds it once it gets there by 11pm as I don't want the fan on at 100% through the night May drop it down to 210F if it doesn't hold 225F by 11pm

The smartfire is about 120ft away from my router and although showing a weak signal is still operating ok whereas my Maverick struggled and often dropped the wifi signal at that distance

Must resist the temptation to watch it on my phone all night, as it will defeat the object 😀

As I say 1st time trial so big learning curve, but hopefully it will be a success.

p.s. My Morrisons will trim off the rind and retie it for me, if I ask them. You may want to do your own, lot easier and tidier than my efforts if I ask them.

p.p.s Does your smartfire blower sit over a vent hole or more towards the middle where the rivet on the daisy wheel is?

Fantastic. I hope this is going well.

I do find that having the bottom two vents open slightly helps and the Smartfire fan is then supplementing with extra air as needed rather providing it all. This also helps your battery pack life. I think for more than 225f you need to have vents more open. All pits are slightly different though. 

My Smartfire is offset from the vent central rivet. But I never consciously lined it up over a vent hole. I am not sure if the cake tin adaptor takes this into account. The cake tin  is essentially central over the vent wheel. If that makes sense?

I didn't try hard on the retie. I new it was going for pulled,so not much point trying to keep it pristine. I mostly just used the existing loops  of string to roughly hold it together. Once it was tightly wrapped in foil, this was probably more effective.

I quite enjoy the trim. I think you learn more about the meat. 

Phil.

 

Edited June 22, 2019 by Phlashster

[sotv]

Clearly done something wrong even leaving 1 vent fully open although I was asleep it started dropping off at 0300 when I woke just after 5am it had dropped to 176 F and the briquettes had practically burnt themselves out to nothing. Saved the fire but have put another full basket of Lumpwood on.

Clearly more learning needed and a way to find it to hold a steady 225F for a sustained period of time, whether that is the vents, charcoal or me. but I will get there.

[Phlashster]

Ah man, sorry to hear that.

I suspect maybe the charcoal? If you have never used it before, it might have different properties. 

I use the Pro Q coco charcoal. With 3kg of this, I am pretty confident i could get 12h or more.

Did the temp stay stable until it started dropping?

Phil.

  

[sotv]

18 minutes ago, Phlashster said:

Ah man, sorry to hear that.

I suspect maybe the charcoal? If you have never used it before, it might have different properties. 

I use the Pro Q coco charcoal. With 3kg of this, I am pretty confident i could get 12h or more.

Did the temp stay stable until it started dropping?

Phil.

  

Think it was the charcoal. Loaded a basket of my usual lumpwood, got it going from the embers of the briquettes left and it is now at 225F bang on within 25 minutes of loading it and holding it with just the one vent open and the fan came on at 5% when it dropped to 224F and it climbed back to 225F straight away and switched itself off. Much better than the fan @ 100% constant to keep it at just 215F . Hopefully have a bit more success with this charcoal.

It did hold the temperature from about 2330-0300 before it started dropping off never went above 215F the whole time with the same vent open as the lumpwood. 

It is all good practice and learning and the pork shouldn't suffer too much so long as it gets to reach 195F before the bottom fills with ash and chokes the fire anyway 😀

I don't need the pork till 1pm anyway so will get an idea of how long a basket of this charcoal lasts on a burn as well compared to the briquettes..

Back to watching the temperatures on my phone it gets a bit mesmerising. Mustn't let it become a habit 😀

Edited June 22, 2019 by sotv

[Phlashster]

15 minutes ago, sotv said:

Back to watching the temperatures on my phone it gets a bit mesmerising. Mustn't let it become a habit 😀

Once you get the confidence it can just handle things, you start looking less. 😀

[Phlashster]

Are you going to wrap? Any water in the bowl? What is you internal at now? 

Phil.

[Icefever]

3 minutes ago, Phlashster said:

Any water in the bowl?

You guys have had your frontiers longer than me,  and one thing I've noticed about it I had to take the water bowl out last Sun to get the temp up where I wanted it.  Without the bowl it seemed a lot better....and I've just been informed  that I'm doing both a tri=tip and ribs tomorrow by SWMBO....

Ice.

[Phlashster]

1 minute ago, Icefever said:

You guys have had your frontiers longer than me,  and one thing I've noticed about it I had to take the water bowl out last Sun to get the temp up where I wanted it.  Without the bowl it seemed a lot better....and I've just been informed  that I'm doing both a tri=tip and ribs tomorrow by SWMBO....

You can run the bowl empty, or with sand in. Without the bowl at all, the heat will be more direct heat.

The bowl itself and water or sand acts as a heat sink. They absorb some of the energy and stabilise the temps, at the cost of some fuel efficiency. I have never tried to hold a temp above 250F yet. 

Phil.

[Icefever]

I've been running my Brinkman with a water bowl, but never had to take it out to mantain a temp....it's all a learning curve...

 

Ice.

[Phlashster]

1 minute ago, Icefever said:

....it's all a learning curve...

Yep, every single cook. Lol 

[sotv]

40 minutes ago, Phlashster said:

Are you going to wrap? Any water in the bowl? What is you internal at now? 

Phil.

Just looked been it has kept a nice steady 225F since 0600 when I switched to lumpwood i.e the temp dropped to 223.8 and the fan has kicked in at 3% and it has gone back up to 224.7 after a minute and switched itself off. Doing what it should. Internal is up to 180F reckon it will be done about 1000am a little earlier than I wanted but will stick it in a picnic cooler till it is needed with a couple of tea towels over it.

Always have a waterbowl covered in foil inside with water in and keep topped up throughout the cook

Sorry to derail your Pulled pork thread but you did something very similar to me and used the same equipment and helped me out. Hopefully people will look at your good pics and not focus on my problems 👍

36 minutes ago, Icefever said:

You guys have had your frontiers longer than me,  and one thing I've noticed about it I had to take the water bowl out last Sun to get the temp up where I wanted it.  Without the bowl it seemed a lot better....and I've just been informed  that I'm doing both a tri=tip and ribs tomorrow by SWMBO....

Ice.

225F shoud be the default with waterbowl and water or sand in it but as I have found out tonight, the charcoal used can have an effect on the final temp and certainly vents can have an effect on final temp. 

I have found +/5 F for 4-5 hours maybe longer if conditions are right with no aid and correct vent settings is very achievable with the ProQ. Only difference for me now the temp for instance just dropped to 222.5F (which in itself isn't a problem) but the smartfire kicked in at 30% and it rose back upto 225F within 60 seconds. Job done and a little less stress for me 😀

[sotv]

Reached 197F internal at 10am so stuck it in a picnic cooler for a couple of hours. Will leave it running to see how long the lumpwood lasts for. If I can suss out how to post the graphs like you did. I will d, to show the difference between the lumpwood and briquettes for me. But on initial impressions, lumpwood at the moment is the way to go for me for a stable 225F, just need to see how long it lasts for, so if doing an overnight cook. I can sleep restfully 😀

[Smokin Monkey]

Take a screen shot, then post the pictures or do they have a function to email the graphs to yourself?

[sotv]

1 minute ago, Smokin Monkey said:

Take a screen shot, then post the pictures 

it's on my android phone, absolutely no idea how to take a screen shot or where it would end up on my phone?

[Smokin Monkey]

On a smart phone, press on/off button with the home button. They go in to your Photo file.

[Phlashster]

On 6/22/2019 at 10:05 AM, sotv said:

 If I can suss out how to post the graphs like you did.

This is how i did my graph for above. It wasn't even on a phone!

https://app.smartfirebbq.com/

You can do everything you can on the app (and more) if you use a browser on your PC or Mac. 

In the browser version, you can view the previous cooks and look a the data a bit easier. I simply did a screendump of the whole PC screen and cropped out the graph to share. You can do a screen shot on your phone, but you cant see as much detail as by doing it above. A lot of phones have different mechanisms for doing a screenshot. Even different Android models don't use the same mechanism. 

Phil.

PS Just ate some of the pork......oh my goodness. My best ever. And it definitely wasn't the best piece of pork in the first place. Leaving it un-sauced was genius. People could pick either bbq, spicy etc. It was so moist anyway, it didn't need the sauce really. 

 

Edited June 23, 2019 by Phlashster

[Phlashster]

9 hours ago, sotv said:

Sorry to derail your Pulled pork thread but you did something very similar to me and used the same equipment and helped me out.

Don't be daft and certainly don't be sorry. I am not prissy about something so unimportant.

We are all here to learn and share our experiences. I'm just happy i might've helped in some small way. 👍

Phil.

[sotv]

19 hours ago, Phlashster said:

This is how i did my graph for above. It wasn't even on a phone!

https://app.smartfirebbq.com/

You can do everything you can on the app (and more) if you use a browser on your PC or Mac. 

In the browser version, you can view the previous cooks and look a the data a bit easier. I simply did a screendump of the whole PC screen and cropped out the graph to share. You can do a screen shot on your phone, but you cant see as much detail as by doing it above. A lot of phones have different mechanisms for doing a screenshot. Even different Android models don't use the same mechanism. 

Phil.

PS Just ate some of the pork......oh my goodness. My best ever. And it definitely wasn't the best piece of pork in the first place. Leaving it un-sauced was genius. People could pick either bbq, spicy etc. It was so moist anyway, it didn't need the sauce really. 

 

Learnt quite a bit Fri/Sat cook. Wasn't perfect but realised on first impression to maintain 225F, Lumpwood was better than Briquettes in my case. Struggled to get to 225F with the briquettes for some reason and fan had to work really hard to get to 215F Put a basket of Lumpwood on and then went well over 7 hours and within +/- 2F of 225F it was a constant temp, the only fluctuation was when it dropped the internet connection, whilst I went out. But once it re-established the connection after 30 minutes it got back up to 225F quickly. i am sure controlling the vents would help with both fuel sources. But cooking through the night and out most of the day, wasn't really possible on this cook. But will try cracking the other bottom 2 vents open next time

Got to cook a great big piece of shoulder next weekend so will hopefully get more success and will look into all the advice of graphs and stuff I got and will post them after that cook, hopefully

 

 

[sotv]

On 6/22/2019 at 6:41 PM, Phlashster said:

This is how i did my graph for above. It wasn't even on a phone!

https://app.smartfirebbq.com/

You can do everything you can on the app (and more) if you use a browser on your PC or Mac. 

 

 

Thanks for that just took a look at it, it looks much better and bigger than on the phone. Will use this on my laptop on my next cook as found it drained my battery on my old phone  quite rapidly

[Justin]

Not sure what is going on but hit your link

 

:

 

 

[Phlashster]

8 minutes ago, Justin said:

Not sure what is going on but hit your link

That's quite normal Justin. If you had a Smartfire, you login here. Then you can monitor and adjust your cooks. 

Phil.

[Justin]

I see, sorry i thought you were showing a picture of the graph

 

I use and app for screen shots on my android phone called Screenshot Touch

[sotv]

On 6/22/2019 at 6:41 PM, Phlashster said:

This is how i did my graph for above. It wasn't even on a phone!

https://app.smartfirebbq.com/

You can do everything you can on the app (and more) if you use a browser on your PC or Mac. 

In the browser version, you can view the previous cooks and look a the data a bit easier. I simply did a screendump of the whole PC screen and cropped out the graph to share. You can do a screen shot on your phone, but you cant see as much detail as by doing it above. A lot of phones have different mechanisms for doing a screenshot. Even different Android models don't use the same mechanism. 

Phil.

PS Just ate some of the pork......oh my goodness. My best ever. And it definitely wasn't the best piece of pork in the first place. Leaving it un-sauced was genius. People could pick either bbq, spicy etc. It was so moist anyway, it didn't need the sauce really. 

 

Just fired it up and had a play with it in fresh air via the web browser all seems good. Will try it out properly with a through the night cook on Saturday. I have. ordered a 5kg pork shoulder (going to try an injection method on it this time also) from a new farm/butchers shop I have found close to me in Kingsbury

Doing some goat as well, can't see anything in settings to change the setting to show goat is what is being cooked just keeps it at Food 1? in custom settings, but I can set the cooked temp as 195F which is fine in Food 1, but would have been nice to show the type of meat.