I ordered apple and cherry chips from amazon before. Was happy with the products, I think I personally prefer fruit woods over hickory. Home Depot by my house just started stocking different chips, before they only had hickory.

Had an impulsive decision to go to Stiles Switch today. Absolutely top notch. Brisket was very good, beef rib very good, spicy sausage delicious. Great experience, easy to get to, short line, reasonable prices. I will definitely be back.

Update on smoker search: Likely going with the prima, these big stick burning offset require alot of tending to the fire meanwhile the prima can burn for 12 hours with one bucket of coals.

If you're looking for a combo grill/smoker, I use this Master Forge charcoal grill I got at Lowe's for like $129. I'm sure the pros would scoff at it but for the casual smoker like myself, it's pretty good. It's big enough that you can get plenty of distance between your fire and your meat. It also has a furnace door below the grill level so you can feed coal and wood in without opening the top of the grill and letting heat out. Height adjustable coal rack, side vents, chimney, 3-piece slide in/out grill, external thermometer and built in bottle opener are other nice features.

http://www.lowes.com/ProductDisplay?...llow&cId=PDIO1

Must say that looks like huge bang for your buck, how much fuel are you firing into that on a 12 hour smoke?

Probably close to a full bag of lump charcoal with wood chunks in addition to that.

John Mueller is opening a new trailer at 6th and Perdenales with his usual meats including brisket, sausage, pork ribs and his famous beef ribs.

Grand opening February 20th. Open 10:30am till sold out Tuesday to Saturday.

New site is up at
http://www.johnmuellermeatco.com/home/

PM me if you want an invite to the soft launch.

Smoked my first pork butt yesterday. Was actually disappointed. Used this recipe from Amazing Ribs: http://amazingribs.com/recipes/porkn...lled_pork.html

So I put the rub on, left it in the fridge for a couple of hours. Then smoked it on my cheap old charcoal grill. I didn't follow the recipe exactly. You're supposed to put 2 oz of wood every half hour for the first 2 hours. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I was only able to put 2 oz of hickory at the beginning. I didn't think it would be too big a deal since the site itself says that oversmoking is a much bigger problem than undersmoking. But by the time the meat was finished, there was basically no taste to it at all. Sweet Baby Ray BBQ sauce helps it, but it really was pretty bland without it.

Also disappointed in how long it took. Recipe says 2 hours per pound. And this was a small boneless pork shoulder of only 3 pounds. But it took about 6.5 hours to get to temperature. After resting, that's about 8 hours from first lighting the charcoal to finally eating. I'll really need to start earlier next time.

That's pretty close to 2 hours per pound. I also find it hard to believe that it's possible to oversmoke a shoulder. Sometimes it will take such a long ass time to go from 185 to 195 that I don't know how someone would be able to oversmoke it.

Here is the rub I use and I've never had bland meat:

3 parts Tony's
3 parts salt
3 parts garlic powder
3 parts brown sugar
2 parts onion powder
1 part chili powder
1 part paprika
1 part black pepper

Massage the meat with yellow mustard and apply a coat of rub. Wrap in Saran Wrap for a minimum of 2 hours (generally I allow it to sit over night). Remove from wrap, liberally apply another coat of rub before placing in smoker.

In the summer, I generally make the above rub in bulk as it's great on ribs, pork chops etc.

It's almost impossible to over smoke a butt on a charcoal grill. Sounds like you were bleeding heat off your grill if a 3lb chunk took 6 hours. Did you wrap it in foil?

Thanks for the advice. I'll make sure to put a rub on twice next time. And next time, I'll be able to put in more wood periodically.

As for heat bleeding off, I wouldn't be surprised. It's a cheap, generic grill and I couldn't re-fuel it. I actually ended up finishing it in my oven.

Smoking for a few hours and then finishing in the oven (whole pan covered with foil) is a legit option for people without a real smoker. Something like 2 hours on the grill and 2 hours at low temp in the oven should do it. Oven times may vary depending on size.

The interior of pulled pork is usually pretty bland. You need to mix in some chopped up bark, some rub, or a finishing sauce. Or any combination of these three.

What was the internal when you pulled it off the grill? What temp were you smoking at? Pork butt takes a long time, especially if you are aiming for 195-200 internal. But I think 1.5 hrs/lb at 225 is pretty standard.

As far as smoke flavor, you really want to hit it hard with smoke in the first couple hours. That's when you're going to get the most smoke flavor inside the meat. But I use a lot of smoke throughout generally. Like others have said, don't worry about over smoking it - they say mesquite can be overpowering but I've always used fruit woods and hickory anyway.

Also, that's a pretty small butt. Did it seem like it had good fat content? Was there a later of fat on one side? If not, it may have not been as tasty. You really want that fat to render and bleed throughout the meat.

Next time try coating in mustard before applying the rub (you won't taste any mustard when it's done) and also there is no way to oversmoke a pork butt. You can also try injecting it with some kind of apple juice based solution (juice +rub+cider vinegar+sugar etc)

The grocery store had a meat sale so I bought a whole pork loin along with a whole ribeye (see steak thread). I decided to smoke it along with a rack of ribs. Put them both in the smoker for 4 hours. Ribs were done, and I wrapped the loin in foil and finished in the oven.

Ribs, or half a rack after eating the other half:


Loin:

Oh my god, I want some of this.

I don't know what world you live in that a loin takes longer than ribs to cook

I've never even heard of smoking a pork loin. Is this done? How was it?

The loin was 13 lbs and I cut it in half. Internal temp was 145 when I pulled it. I was going for 160, so I finished it in the oven.

It was on sale for $1.49/lb and I bought it not sure what I was going to do with it. I decided to smoke it and it tastes pretty good.

Going to try my first slow smoke ribs this weekend. I can't wait.

Has anyone ever eaten at Baker's Ribs? Any good?

my buddy is having a house warming/pool party today here in phoenix so I decided to whip up about 55-60 atomic buffalo turds

these particular ones are jalapenos halved, stuffed with a chive/onion cream cheese and a little bit of sour cream with a pork sausage smokie and then wrapped in bacon

on to my smoker for about 2 hours at 240-260 and then cranked up at the very end to crisp up the bacon...haven't tried them yet but they look/smell delicious

going to serve them plain with some ranch of the side if people want to cool them down a bit

Durango, I'm starting to dislike you. All your free golf AND sick food skills. Just not fair.

Lol I definitely go hard, actually gotta pay to play tomorrow I think at Aguila