Did my first smoke cook ever of a shoulder on my new Mak 1-Star this weekend.
I started with a 7 pound bone-in shoulder, dry brined and then rubbed with meathead's memphis Dust. I had a hodgepodge mix of hickory, mesquite, and Mak's Hazelnut blend pellets in my hopper. Placed the shoulder on the top rack with a drip pan underneath and a mini meatloaf pan with water in it for moisture. Started the cook at 9:30 pm Saturday night. I set the Pellet Boss to Smoke Mode, 170 degrees for two hours, then up the temp to 225 degrees for the duration of the cook until the internal probe reached 195.
I checked the smoker a couple times until about midnight just to make sure I programmed the Pellet Boss correctly. Everything was working perfectly. What an easy system to use!
Went to bed, woke up at 5:45 am. Checked in on the Mak, and I had started in on the dreaded stall, stuck at 155 degrees. Thanks to my education here at Amazing Ribs, I was prepared for it (although it still freaked me out after a while). Did not wrap as I did not want to complicate things on my very first cook. I remained at 155 for the next six hours. Then in the next couple hours I was able to only creep up to 164 degrees. I was at the 15 hour mark by this point so I decided to up the temp to 260 to see if I could get things moving a little quicker.
By the 20.5 hour mark I was up to 185 degrees and couldn't get it to budge any further. I decided to take the shoulder off, wrapped it and let it rest for about an hour. When it came time to pull, it pulled rather easy, but it was more of a chunky pull than a shredded pull. Truth be told I enjoy a chunkier pulled pork anyway. Made some simple sandwiches with some Lilly's Carolina Gold sauce.Taste was fantastic, bark was INCREDIBLE, and I'm getting rave reviews from the co-workers I brought some 'doggy bags' to this morning for a tasting.
A couple questions I have for the more experienced cookers here, and I'm hoping to learn a few things to get better. Is this just a case of me having purchased an extremely stubborn shoulder that refused to hit 195/200 degrees even after 20 hours of smoking? Or did I make an error in putting the meat on the top rack? Did I crowd the bottom by putting both a drip pan and water tray, could that have had an effect on my heat circulating properly? I'd like to get a few more cooks in and get a better idea of timing before I try this with company over. Any advice from you ladies and gents would be greatly appreciated.
Anyway, enough blithering, blathering, and babbling from me. Here are some pictures.
I started with a 7 pound bone-in shoulder, dry brined and then rubbed with meathead's memphis Dust. I had a hodgepodge mix of hickory, mesquite, and Mak's Hazelnut blend pellets in my hopper. Placed the shoulder on the top rack with a drip pan underneath and a mini meatloaf pan with water in it for moisture. Started the cook at 9:30 pm Saturday night. I set the Pellet Boss to Smoke Mode, 170 degrees for two hours, then up the temp to 225 degrees for the duration of the cook until the internal probe reached 195.
I checked the smoker a couple times until about midnight just to make sure I programmed the Pellet Boss correctly. Everything was working perfectly. What an easy system to use!
Went to bed, woke up at 5:45 am. Checked in on the Mak, and I had started in on the dreaded stall, stuck at 155 degrees. Thanks to my education here at Amazing Ribs, I was prepared for it (although it still freaked me out after a while). Did not wrap as I did not want to complicate things on my very first cook. I remained at 155 for the next six hours. Then in the next couple hours I was able to only creep up to 164 degrees. I was at the 15 hour mark by this point so I decided to up the temp to 260 to see if I could get things moving a little quicker.
By the 20.5 hour mark I was up to 185 degrees and couldn't get it to budge any further. I decided to take the shoulder off, wrapped it and let it rest for about an hour. When it came time to pull, it pulled rather easy, but it was more of a chunky pull than a shredded pull. Truth be told I enjoy a chunkier pulled pork anyway. Made some simple sandwiches with some Lilly's Carolina Gold sauce.Taste was fantastic, bark was INCREDIBLE, and I'm getting rave reviews from the co-workers I brought some 'doggy bags' to this morning for a tasting.
A couple questions I have for the more experienced cookers here, and I'm hoping to learn a few things to get better. Is this just a case of me having purchased an extremely stubborn shoulder that refused to hit 195/200 degrees even after 20 hours of smoking? Or did I make an error in putting the meat on the top rack? Did I crowd the bottom by putting both a drip pan and water tray, could that have had an effect on my heat circulating properly? I'd like to get a few more cooks in and get a better idea of timing before I try this with company over. Any advice from you ladies and gents would be greatly appreciated.
Anyway, enough blithering, blathering, and babbling from me. Here are some pictures.
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