Quick background... my place of employment for 27 years now (Intuit) has a "We Care & Give Back" core value. They back this up by giving us paid time off each year specific to this activity, up to a week. This year, I guess due to COVID, the options for the activities were a lot less strict and included "acts of kindness" in your neighborhood. So... I was able to take off Wed & Thur to smoke a couple of butts and feed the good folks at the BMTU at UNC Cancer Hospital where my wife works (after getting special approval to bring in outside food)!
I found a couple of 10.5 lb butts at Sams Club. Trimmed and dry brined them for 24 hours, then used a Worcestershire binder and rubbed them down. I had just enough Meat Church Honey Hog Hot and Kosmos Q Honey Killer Bee, I decided to mix them together and just used up those bottles. Tasted great together actually.
I fired up the Bronco in my usual way, though with KBB instead of Weber. As noted on another thread - Weber briquettes have been discontinued (ugh) and this was my go-to for long cooks! Tossed a couple of applewood chunks in there, my fave for pork. 30 min to light, and read to preheat. In this pic, its a bit deceiving but that charcoal basket was full - I couldn't fit another briquette under the handle.
I got the butts on at 8:30am. I did 3 butts once on my PBC on the grate, but had cut each in half and they were ~8 lbers. These 10+ lbers uncut were a tight squeeze, but they fit!
I ran most of the cook at 285-300F. And much to my chagrin, 3 hours later my temps started falling and another 90 min after that I was down to 235F and plummeting, so... decision time, and I was feeling stubborn and rather than just wrapping and moving to the oven, I decided to refuel and keep the smoke rolling! I've flipped the Bronco from smoker to grill several times now, but hadn't refueled it yet. If I'd planned better, I'd have had a lit chimney ready to go, but I didn't. It was still a surprisingly easy process that only took 5 min from the time I walked out the door to the time I walked back in. This was the fuel situation when I checked on it:
And the butt situation at that time, I just lifted the cooking grate out and sat it on my stainless steel surface while I refueled, Fireboard probes were plenty long enough:
15 min later I was back up to temp and smoking again, though with more white smoke than I'd care to admit since I had to use fresh unlit briquettes (shhh). At 3:30pm, after 8 total hours they hit 203F IT and were probe tender everywhere.
I let them sit in the hold for 90 min, then I chopped them up. This is just one butt.
Each butt filled a 1/2 steam pan, one pan went for day shift and the other for night shift. We took them over on Thursday around 10:30am along with hamburger buns, bbq sauce, and coleslaw. Heard back today at 11am that there was just enough for the early lunchers to have leftovers. They were some very happy and appreciative nurses & doctors - so worth it!
I found a couple of 10.5 lb butts at Sams Club. Trimmed and dry brined them for 24 hours, then used a Worcestershire binder and rubbed them down. I had just enough Meat Church Honey Hog Hot and Kosmos Q Honey Killer Bee, I decided to mix them together and just used up those bottles. Tasted great together actually.
I fired up the Bronco in my usual way, though with KBB instead of Weber. As noted on another thread - Weber briquettes have been discontinued (ugh) and this was my go-to for long cooks! Tossed a couple of applewood chunks in there, my fave for pork. 30 min to light, and read to preheat. In this pic, its a bit deceiving but that charcoal basket was full - I couldn't fit another briquette under the handle.
I got the butts on at 8:30am. I did 3 butts once on my PBC on the grate, but had cut each in half and they were ~8 lbers. These 10+ lbers uncut were a tight squeeze, but they fit!
I ran most of the cook at 285-300F. And much to my chagrin, 3 hours later my temps started falling and another 90 min after that I was down to 235F and plummeting, so... decision time, and I was feeling stubborn and rather than just wrapping and moving to the oven, I decided to refuel and keep the smoke rolling! I've flipped the Bronco from smoker to grill several times now, but hadn't refueled it yet. If I'd planned better, I'd have had a lit chimney ready to go, but I didn't. It was still a surprisingly easy process that only took 5 min from the time I walked out the door to the time I walked back in. This was the fuel situation when I checked on it:
And the butt situation at that time, I just lifted the cooking grate out and sat it on my stainless steel surface while I refueled, Fireboard probes were plenty long enough:
15 min later I was back up to temp and smoking again, though with more white smoke than I'd care to admit since I had to use fresh unlit briquettes (shhh). At 3:30pm, after 8 total hours they hit 203F IT and were probe tender everywhere.
I let them sit in the hold for 90 min, then I chopped them up. This is just one butt.
Each butt filled a 1/2 steam pan, one pan went for day shift and the other for night shift. We took them over on Thursday around 10:30am along with hamburger buns, bbq sauce, and coleslaw. Heard back today at 11am that there was just enough for the early lunchers to have leftovers. They were some very happy and appreciative nurses & doctors - so worth it!
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