A butt on the 22.5 Kettle with the new Pro-Series Grate!

I felt adventurous this weekend so I injected a large butt (11.5lb) I had in the freezer with a new concoction.

1 part cider vinegar
5 parts Worcestershire
4 cloves garlic
2 parts grape jelly

I put it all in the magic bullet, loaded it in the spitjack injector (found at spitjack.com) Bruce is a great guy over there.

Shot the butt in about 2 dozen spots, let it sit over night with it fat cap down in some beer.

The next night, I took the new pro series kettle grate I made out and put 2 bricks on the side to hold back the coals and give a nice heat sink, put an aluminum pan on the lower rack 1/2 full of water, and used the weed burner to start the coals on one side (my modified minion method for the kettle) I replaced the grate and laid 2 pieces of hickory on the grate over the coals which were unlit. I put the smoker probe of the Maverick ET-73 in a potato slice and closed the lid with the bottom vent cracked and the top vent 1/3 open. The kettle took about 20 minutes to get to a steady 240*F (probably cause I put cold water in the pan and the grate was alot of mass to warm up!



First rubbed down the big butt with Plowboys Bovine Bold and loaded it fat cap up over the water pan.

I checked the butt after about 5 hours when I had to reload the coals and it was looking really delicious! The smell was friggin' amazing! The hickory was doing just as I had planned and just slowly smoking off. I went to sleep only to awakened to the sound of the Maverick signaling the butt hit 200! It had only been 8 hours!!! I have had 8.5lb butts take 10-13 hours but this thing just rocked on through! I could see the temps were falling in the kettle from the maverick so I decided to just shut it off and go back to sleep and let it do its thing. The butt sat another 1.5 hours before I could manage to wake up to check it.

I was worried that my laziness would have caused the butt to dry out but everything was fine! I brought the butt in still over 180*F and let it rest for about 20 min before I couldn't stand the smell anymore and I pulled it. The fat cap (what was left) just pealed right off and the bone literally fell out! The thing wasn't over done, it wasn't underdone. It was just perfect! One of my best actually. I loved the flavor the grape jelly added! I had been reading a little into marinades using grape jelly to sweeten it so I figured why not in my injection? Here is the picture of my final product! So good it needs no sauce!



Thanks for looking!

Actually it was Julie and a few other sources i looked up some old BBQ sauce concoctions. Also I think someone told me about using it in meatloaf.

Thanks Julie!

Thanks! I'm being told, the amount of injection could have been the difference in cook time. Apparently, more liquid = less cook time. Transfers heat better?

This was the largest butt I've done so I had to add some more injection. I also soaked it in some beer on the fat cap side thinking it would aid in moisture retention in the little kettle. It worked! No dryness and no need to wrap the sucker!

Skip said:

Hmmm you say you stripped the fat cap easily. Did you scavenge the strands of meat in there? The judges never see those pieces. Those are mine lol

Click to expand...

I did save them cause I'm eating it but the pretty stuff in the picture was from the other side!