37 Pounds of Pork Shoulder . . .

[cueball21]

. . . went into my OC Brazos at 10:15 this morning, 2 butts and 2 picnics. I placed my Thermoworks Dot probe in one of the picnics and got a reading of 32°. Smoker temp was 200° when I closed the lid. They have been cruising between 225-275° for 3hours 20 minutes and IT has reached 118°. I'll take them to 195° before I take them off. I'll use the Dot probe to give me a guide then check the others with a Thermopop. I expect the butts to reach the goal temp before the picnics, but who knows.


I'm curious to see how much weight loss there will be. I trimmed excess fat and the skin on the picnics and will remove the bones after wrapping them and placing them in a cooler for a few hours. I'll them pull and pack the meat in 1# deli containers which I'll weigh as I pack them. I'm expecting a little more than 50% weight loss. Will report back when the smoking is done.


I love my Old Country Brazos. Thank you daughter and son-in-law! :icon_smile_tongue:

[16Adams]

Damn fine cook

[Norm]

Sounds like a solid plan Bob.

[pjtexas1]

Sounds like a great cook. What small army are you feeding?

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

[BillN]

Got pics Bob?

[cueball21]

The smoke ended at about 7:00 PM as the butts reached 195° or more depending on the size and placement of the shoulders.


I DO have pics and will post when I can figure out why dropbox from my iPhone to their cloud isn't working. Let me get back to you.


I packed the pulled result in 1 and 1-1/2 pound deli containers. I got 16 pounds and 4 oz. as measured on my scales. That's a little over 44% yield, 56% loss, of the label weight. Two of the shoulders were picnics which have more bone weight. Probably only a few ounces lost to bone; so the overall yield after trimming fat before the smoke and cleaning up the too-hard bark and internal fat is about 44%. I like very lean results. I'd be curious to know if anyone has ever done this evaluation and what results they got.


Paul, to answer your question, their is no army. I freeze enough to last me for quite a few months. I also stock SIL's freezer and give a few pounds away. Four is about the right number of butts - I could do 6 if I crowded them - for a smoke. I buy them when HEB has them for a buck a pound - like they do right now - and hold in the freezer until I have enough for a smoke. You know me; I'm a stickler for maximizing smoke from the sticks burned.


Thanks for the interest and responses.



BTW: From another thread, I'm one of the gawkers who visited Paul to drool over his Shirley.




Later . . .

[W.I.T.W.A.G?]

sounds like a great day! I usually plan on a 50% but I have never gotten as detailed as you did. I also usually do not trim pork unless it's for a contest.

[cueball21]

OK! Let's see if we get pics.
The first pic is 10 lbs packed for the freezer and 6 lbs 4 oz in the pan. I packed that in larger containers, 1-1/2 lbs each. The tomato and Texas Pete bottle are just for color.
The second pic is the result of my biscuit test done when I smoked the pork. The canned biscuits were placed in cat food tins. The black one was placed just above my stack outlet at the far left. The middle one was about midway on the smoke rack with 2 shoulders to its right and 2 to its left. The 2 on the right were placed either side of a water bowl at the burner end of the smoker. I use the fire grate that came with the OC Brazos as a baffle. I was surprised to learn that the stack side is somewhat hotter than the firebox side and that the firebox side and the middle one about the same as the ones next to the firebox but maybe slightly cooler.

I've never seen pics of the biscuit test and thought I'd share my results.

[cowgirl]

Wow! Looks great, Bob! Going to be some good eatin' in your future. :cool:

[angryelfFan]

BooYah!! Looks TASTY!!!