My First Butt

Why yes, it has taken me way too long to finally smoke up my first pork butt for pulled pork. But life does get in the way some times.

Had a nice day hanging out with a good friend, learned that the smoker leaks like a sieve, learned to start the meat defrosting earlier, learned to start cooking earlier, learned all kinds of good stuff. Gotta love it when you get to learn and eat the lesson too! :biggrin:

Yes it did happen - see photos below. I was bummed that I forgot my good camera and had to resort to the camera phone - but they turned out fairly good considering!

For the full story and more photos: http://timcraig.blogspot.com/2008/09/my-first-pulled-pork.html

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Thanks for all the tips shared on the forums!

The first "post-cook" photo on the cutting board with the Tri-Tip and sausage has about a 1/2 butt chopped. The family was getting restless and I thought this would be the fastest way to go.

The last photo is the other 1 1/2 butts that I took home and pulled proper - with my hands. :smile:

Well done on your first butt.
Yes those smokers do leak. I found that a moving blanket (like $15 at Home Depot) works great for both cold nights and to slow the smoke leaks down a bit.

trp1fox said:

Great job. Don't wait forever to try it again. Try to find the time to make some notes on how you cooked everything. It makes remembering mistakes and good points easier.

How's life in North County? (Grew up in Spring Valley)

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Thanks Larry (and all the other folks the replied too). I took some notes on this cook, just not as many as normal. I was more social on this cook than normal so wasn't as detailed. But that's OK.

I still learned a lot and also got to meet some really nice folks and deepen a friendship. Not bad for a day watching meat cook.

My note usually end up getting translated into a story on my blog as well.

Life in north county? Not too bad. Although October is coming up and that mean Santa Ana season and that means the potential for bad fires. We all hope that since is was just a year ago we had a major fire storm that we will be safe this year - but you never know. Other than that, just chugging along trying to keep up with all that life throws at us - and that has been a lot lately. It sure was nice to take a whole day to do this smoke and get away from it all!

Thanks brothers!