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Disappointing First Big Cook on the Chubby

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    Disappointing First Big Cook on the Chubby

    I did my first long cook on my new G2 Chubby today and the results were disappointing. BUT, in defense of the Chubby, I did change three things instead of just one.

    I was cooking a Pork Butt, BTW. Sorry, I forgot to take a pic of the final result.

    1. I switched to Meathead's recipe. Previously I was using a recipe w/an overnight citrus-based marinade. Meathead seems to poo-poo marinades, so I tried his recipe.
    2. I previously wrapped at 160. This time, I decided to go the distance and not wrap.
    3. And, of course, I went from the PBC to the G2.

    I also wasn't perfect with my temps. Still getting used to this thing:
    1. Stayed in the 225-230 range for 4.5 hrs
    2. Purposefully cranked it up to 250 to end the stall
    3. Didn't notice at 6 hours when I started running out of fuel
    4. Did almost a full re-fuel at 8 hours.

    Here are my temps. Green is the cooker. Purple is the food.

    Click image for larger version  Name:	Image-1 (1).jpg Views:	1 Size:	123.6 KB ID:	608618

    AND I pulled it at 198, thinking it would rise slowly to 203. It never did.
    AND I noticed via my instant thermo one section was only at 180. What's up with that?

    If I had to guess, I'm going with not wrapping and a longer cook.

    #2
    1. No reason for much carryover since you had a very high internal temp. Had you pulled at 145 you might have had a rise of 5-10 degrees. It has a lot to do with the discrepancy b/n the temperature of the external surface and the internal temperature.

    2. As crazy as the green line is, I wouldn't have guessed it had I only seen the purple. The meat didn't seem to mind the fluctuations much.

    3. Try, if you can, some B & B Hardwood Briquets.

    Comment


    • wcpreston
      wcpreston commented
      Editing a comment
      See that one part where the meat temp started dropping a bit? It happened when I ran out of fuel at 5 hrs and didn't notice. The temp in the oven dropped below the meat temp, and the meat temp dropped a bit.

      The B/B Briquets look really expensive!

    #3
    Your temp swings aren't anything to worry about. Sometimes the electronics and constant monitoring of temps gets you to over think things and confuse you. It's easy to read too much into things and over react. I assume you were going for pulled pork given you were looking for a finished temp of 203 or so.

    For pork butts or briskets I don't even probe for temps for the first 6 hours or so. Always probe in several places especially when you are nearing your finished temp. Towards the end I'm looking more at how easily the probe slides in and out rather than temp. I've let some pork butts go to 210 or so before pulling it out of the smoker if I don't like the way it feels when probing. I usually let my pork butts rest overnight before pulling the next day. I have Cambro's for this so I don't know if you could do this with a faux Cambro or not.

    Stick to the basics of time and final temp and keep it simple and you will be fine. You are on the right path of no wrapping and longer cook time.

    Comment


      #4
      How large was your Boston Butt? I routinely cook 10#ers which are 4”+ thick. They typically take 12-14 hours at 225 pulling with an internal temp of 200. Thickness of meat determines cook time. Don’t forget to factor that into your life and culations.

      Comment


      • wcpreston
        wcpreston commented
        Editing a comment
        I didn't weigh it, but the ones I get from Costco are usually around 5-6 lbs

      • LA Pork Butt
        LA Pork Butt commented
        Editing a comment
        wcpreston more important than weight in determining cook time is the thickness of the meat. Your 6#er could have been as thick as my 10#er.

      #5
      Carryover is dependent on the difference in temp between the protein and the cooker. On a low and slow cook, the difference in temps is relatively small, so there will be very little rise in temp when you pull it off. But, if you are cooking hot and fast, there will be a larger difference in temp, and more carryover.

      Was you butt bone in? If so, the temp will normally rise slower close to the bone. If it was boneless, that was just the way that butt was. That's why you need to probe in a number of places to make sure the entire butt is done.

      Comment


      • wcpreston
        wcpreston commented
        Editing a comment
        #themoreyouknow

        Didn't realize that about the temp difference.

        Boneless pork.

        Yea.... again... the more you know. I now know EVERYWHERE needs to be probe tender, and it's more about how it feels not how it looks on a thermometer. Just like the brisket. I was rushing. Wife was coming home hungry.

        #blamethewife

      #6
      So what was so disappointing about the results? Tough meat? Your cooker temp swings are definitely no big deal.

      Comment


      • wcpreston
        wcpreston commented
        Editing a comment
        Good point. What was disapointing was the moisture and its wasn't as tender. It wasn't dry, per se, but it was definitely dryer than previous cooks of the same thing in the PBC
        Last edited by wcpreston; December 17, 2018, 01:19 PM.

      #7
      Every new smoker I have ever had was disappointing at the beginning as far as meat taste/texture results. I didn't have the new types of thermometers and relied on metal oven thermometers to tell me what was going on inside vs the temp gauge on the outside. A bunch of the fun was figuring out how I could get my new smoker to work like my old one. Because I had cheap offset smokers which weren't made for the fires and constant cooking I was doing, I would have to upgrade with some regularity.

      I now have a couple of cabinet style smokers and after 5 years I still can't get the same quality smoke ring that I could with my offsets. It has no ill effect on the outcome of the food, it is just a cosmetic difference. Temperatures are the same, moisture is the same, rubs are the same. Still very little ring. I will get it dialed in some day.

      I think you are going to love your Chubby once you get it figured out. Most of the fun will be getting there.

      Comment


        #8
        Keep workin at it. Do not be discouraged. You are defiinetly in the right place for any type of problems, plus you have a great cooker. 👍👍👍.

        Comment


        • wcpreston
          wcpreston commented
          Editing a comment
          #moremeatinmyfuture

        #9
        I don't think wrapping was the issue, or the rub you used. I think you didn't cook the butt to probe tender, and pulled it off too soon.

        I smoked two 8 pound butts that were slightly different shapes on my kettle. I lit the fire at 11pm on Thursday night, and put them on about midnight. One of them was probe tender at 5:15PM, around 200F. The other was for whatever reason running 5-10 cooler for its IT, and I pulled it off an hour later at 203F. Both were two fo the best pulled pork BBQ I've made, and I got rave reviews from the Christmas party on Friday night, and family on Saturday night.

        Since I was on a schedule, I did raise the temperature to a little over 300 around 4PM, to finish out on time (dinner guests were coming at 6:30, and I was also wrangling 3 full chickens on another grill).

        My temperature ranged from 220 to 275 during the cook, and it took 18 hours. I find your 9 hour cooking time for a butt to be shorter than any cook time I have ever seen, on my offset OR my Weber Kettle. If results were substandard, I imagine you just didn't let it get to probe tender.

        The graph below shoots up and down the times I opened the kettle or refueled, and the meat graph dipped slightly as I moved the probe from the butt that was done to the butt that still needed another hour.

        All in all I was EXTREMELY pleased that I was able to go 12 hours on a load of charcoal without refueling on my SNS, and to be honest, I probably could have gone 2 more hours at the point I opened the lid to check it.


        ​​​​​​​ Click image for larger version  Name:	IMG_D56386D2E996-1.jpeg Views:	1 Size:	229.9 KB ID:	608740

        Comment


          #10
          Yea... that must have been it.

          I shouldn't have listened to the Meater. It's the one that told me to pull it at 197. I rose to 199 but not to 203.

          I've been told that things cook quicker on the Chubby, due to its reverse flow setup, which creates a convection-type effect. But I still pulled it way early.

          My temp control unit arrives on Wed, and it comes with its own food probe, so that'll make early morning/overnight cooks more of a reality.

          Comment


            #11
            wcpreston if you ever find yourself pressed for time by a hungry wife - or like I was with a 6:30PM Christmas party this past Friday, THAT is when I will wrap a butt in foil, but typically when I am close to an hour from my deadline.

            My butt was around 185 at 4:30PM, so I wrapped in foil, leaving the probe in place, and bumped smoker temp from about 250 up to 325ish. That got it up to 200 and probe tender (like butter). The second butt I also wrapped, but it was 10 degrees cooler, and took an additional hour to reach 203 (where I set the alarm) and it was probe tender. I left the party for 5 minutes to run outside and double wrap it and drop into a small cooler, and I pulled that second butt at 10PM after everyone left (it was still burning the crap out of my fingers after 3.5 hours in a cooler).

            My cook took so long due to the fact I intentionally got the vents to where it was around 215 or so and went to bed. I figured running a little lower would get me a longer sleep in an overnight cook. When I got up it was sitting around 230, which was perfect. I would probably go for 250F most of the time though, which can shorten the cook considerably. I've had unwrapped butts get over 300F overnight (340F once!) and they were just fine - other than being done hours before expected. All that fat makes this a hard cut of meat to screw up, short of pulling it off before its done.

            Comment


            • jfmorris
              jfmorris commented
              Editing a comment
              wcpreston brisket is a LOT different than a pork shoulder. The pork shoulder has a lot more internal fat to render and keep the meat moist through. The brisket flat is fairly lean. I wrap my briskets in foil around 160F, and finish them out wrapped, I see little reason to wrap a pork shoulder other than to crutch for time, and see little difference in moisture, at least on my cookers.

              The only sub-par butts I’ve cooked, with many hundreds behind me, are the ones I pulled too early.

            • wcpreston
              wcpreston commented
              Editing a comment
              Almost every video I've seen online sees people wrapping their briskets. I've been wrapping mine as well, but wondered if I was doing something wrong. I've wondered if NOT wrapping would get me a thicker bark or something.

              But the cooking temp and finishing temps are roughly the same, and they both need to be "probe tender" before you pull them. But it sounds like it's more common to wrap the brisket
              Last edited by wcpreston; December 18, 2018, 12:13 AM.

            • jfmorris
              jfmorris commented
              Editing a comment
              wcpreston yes you might get more bark, but at greater risk of a dried out flat.

            #12
            I did not know what a G2 Chubby was until I looked it up, Thats a good looking unit. Here my theory no to butts are alike. Are ya glad! When we would do competitions we would always cook 3 butts. For that reason. There are not graded like beef. Another thought I had was similar to what tbob4 said, every time I get a new smoker, there is a 6 cook learning curve. I'm sure your first was just fine, they will get better.
            I have cooked many in 8-9 hours and had some that went 12 hours. Your temp range's look spot on to me. 225-250 always works. I'm not sure why you got a 180 reading on your prob temp. When your were reading was 198, better do a calibration check.
            No to butt's are alike.

            Comment


            • wcpreston
              wcpreston commented
              Editing a comment
              One part of it was 180. The rest was 198/199. Which matched how the butt felt as well. There was one section that was close to tough, or at least tough for pork.

            • jfmorris
              jfmorris commented
              Editing a comment
              That is so true, I’ve had butts finish in 12 hours, and some in 18 hours, on side by side smokers at the same temp. Worst was an 84 butt cook I did one time, and I basically was checking with a probe thermometer every 15 to 30 minutes the last 4-5 hours of the cook, pulling butts and putting them in coolers.

            #13
            BTW... tomorrow I get my BBQ Guru temp controller. You know I'm doing another butt. Not sure where all this meat's going to go, but the other good thing about pork butt's is they're cheap as chips at Costco. A whole lot cheaper than screwing up a brisket.

            Comment


            • wcpreston
              wcpreston commented
              Editing a comment
              Got one already. I'm actually two weeks into a 28-day age w/the Umai dry age bags

            • Jerod Broussard
              Jerod Broussard commented
              Editing a comment
              I need another Food Saver, mine will no longer suck the wide bags, which sucks, I mean it doesn't suck, but it sucks...I guess

            • randy56
              randy56 commented
              Editing a comment
              You will love the guru, except the pesky audible alarm. Example: when you open the door to take a peak or rotate u lose temp and the alarm beeps untill you shut it up, they are a great tool.

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