Help me start smoking.

After a very nice (and very generous) Christmas, I find myself with a big electric grill, a metal smoking box, a few flavors of wood chip, and big pieces of both pork and brisket.

I've always wanted to try cooking BBQ, and I believe I now have the basic ingredients to make it. I can precisely control heat for extended periods, I can make smoke, and I have a big hunk of meat. What's left?

Well, a recipe. And the internet is full of conflicting advice, so I figure I'll ask you all. Any recommendations for going from a raw pork butt to fantastic pulled pork? Rubs, sauces, cooking times, etc?

Thanks!

Uh, I'm right here? Anyway, one of my favorite pork treatments is to slather it in spicy mustard, then rub on a very brown-sugar forward combo that includes garlic salt, both smoked and hot paprikas, plenty of kosher salt and pepper.. I don't measure, but figure you're making a very well-seasoned sugar. Better if it you coat it a day or so in advance. Simple and delish.

Not sure how low your grill goes or how well the firebox maintains temp. I always do country ribs for 8 hours on maybe 225 in my smoker, so shoot for that at a minimum? Mix the oak and mesquite chips (maybe lean more on the mesquite?) make sure you pre soak. (Next time get some fruitwood for pork.) Put a pan with a little apple juice under to catch drippings.

Mom

edited to add, though I think you already know, get that heat as indirect as possible. Hopefully your burners are side-to-side so you can do that.

Here's the only rub you need for everything but pork.

It will annoy Texas brisket traditionalists until they taste it. Goes great on ribs, brisket, filet, mixed into burgers, chicken, turkey. I just don't use it for pulled pork, but it works well there. 

I'll give you recipe help, but metal smoke box and electric grill aren't words that work for me, so control is up to you.

Marjorie Suddard said:

One of my favorite pork treatments is to slather it in spicy mustard, then rub on a very brown-sugar ....

 Do this to Salmon with a bit of Montreal Seasoning is just wonderful!!

Pulled pork. So simple, but Holy E36 M3 the controversy, because everybody thinks they do it best. 

From most to least, I don't measure.

Brown sugar, sea salt, white sugar, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, freshly cracked black pepper.

Rub it in, all over. Score the fat cap if you want, arguments to be made either way, but if you score it pack the rub in there too.

225-250 to an internal temperature of 203-205.

Pull it from the heat, rest for 30-60 minutes, WHOLE, in a pan with 1/4 cup Jack Daniels or preferably Kurvball, with a shot of apple cider vinegar and some extra rub. Then pull it in the pan. 

You really want to elevate your sandwiches, chill it, ball it into 1/4lb balls, and cook them smash burger style on the griddle plate or in a cast iron pan. Really forces bark formation and makes a spectacular sandwich. 

Those claw puller things are bullE36 M3, btw, get you a pair of these or similar.

The fat cap....

you might as well be talking religion or politics based on the internet. Up or down is debated, along with weather or not to score. 

I started with recipes posted on grill manufacturers websites, figuring they wouldn't want something posted on there site that would reflect poorly on their product. 

You'll want to get a Temperature probe and some Butcher paper

In reply to No Time :

Wrapping is over rated, also sogs the bark. I spent years experimenting with foil and butcher paper and different times and different ways of using it, and just no, not worth the time or minimal expense. 

Quality thermometers though are severely under rated. If you want the fancy Wi-Fi Bluetooth bullE36 M3, go for it, but expect problems. A digital leave in with a cord and magnetic back is all you need. 

Whatever thermometers you wind up with, test them in a glass of ice water and in boiling water BEFORE you use them, and every few months depending on how often you use them. 

You'll learn to cook without them, but they're invaluable in the beginning.

Brisket doesn't have a "done" temperature, it's done when it jiggles like Jello when you poke it. It doesn't need an extended rest either. The internet morons heard of a place in Texas that does long rests because they go through 10-20+ whole briskets a day and and decided brisket HAS to rest for hours because that's how the shop does it. It doesn't need anymore than an hour, anyone that tells you 6-12+ hours of resting is telling you they don't know how to cook. 

OOh yea, R/smoking and r/BBQ are full of HORRIBLE advice from people that wouldn't know good food if it slapped them in the face. They all watched the same YouTube video and took it as gospel. But you want solid advice and good information instead of hive mind repetition, so you stay off of reddit anyway, right?

In reply to RevRico :

We'll have to agree to disagree on wrapping. It's like any other tool in  the tool box, you may not always use it, but there are times where you're glad you have it. 

I don't use it for everything, but there are some cases where I will wrap with butcher paper, especially if a softer bark  or more moisture (or limited thickness) in the smoke ring is desired. (Pastrami, poor man's burnt ends, etc). The foil can be helpful as you develop experience with estimating cook time, and if you get stuck with a long stall it can be the difference in being ready when desired.

BBQ is pretty forgiving. That was the entire point of it back in the Dark Ages. A cheap piece of meat, cooked a long time at a low temperature to give it some tenderness and flavor.  

For your first foray, buy some store-bought rub, and smoke a pork butt at 225 to an internal temp of 200+. You will have an edible product that's pretty tasty. Don't sauce it. The sauce should be on the side unless the meat is terrible. 

From there, experiment. Try different rubs, different temps, wrap, unwrap, different wood, and different smoke times. Like I said, BBQ is pretty forgiving. 

For a good basic BBQ, I start with pork butts rubbed in whatever I feel like at the time. Frequently that is just salt and pepper with maybe a touch of garlic or onion powder. I prefer to taste the meat, not the rub. I use my electric smoker set to 225. I almost always use Pecan wood because it doesn't overpower the meat or get bitter. I roll the smoke for 3 hours, then wrap it with foil to keep it from drying out and ending up tasting like a burned stick, and keep it on the heat until it gets to 200+ degrees. 

For a crowd, I use a large propane/charcoal-fired smoker and do 10 butts at a time. 

I also use my smoker to make sandwich meat. A turkey breast or cheap roast smoked and sliced is some of the best sandwich meat you can get and is substantially cheaper than buying it at the store. It only takes a couple of hours so I usually do them in the evening. 

RevRico said:

 

Brown sugar, sea salt, white sugar, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, freshly cracked black pepper.

I use this for almost everything, did turkey breasts last weekend.  
 

It's hard to screw up to badly beyond not getting things hot enough in the winter. Even things that didn't come how they should have were still pretty good. Try anything that looks interesting, don't get too hung up on what's "real" BBQ and have fun with it. 
 

In reply to Wally (Forum Supporter) :

I use a HF welding blanket and moving blanket to insulate in the cold weather and it helps keep temps stable. 

I agree with experimentation. We've done mac & cheese (not too unusual), and bacon wrapped carrots as examples. 

My next venture is going to be beef ribs. I just need to find a local source. 

Oh yea, if you really want to hate yourself and the hobby, make shotgun shells.

Bacon wrapped uncooked manicotti noodles stuffed with sausage/ground beef, rub, and some cream cheese, then smoked to internal 150ish. Absolutely delicious, big crowd pleaser, but so labor intensive I refuse to make them again. 

I even used a pastry bag to fill, and it sucked. That was after trying to stuff them with a spoon, a dowel rod, fingers. Really really tricky getting the meat the whole way through without breaking them. 

 my biggest advice aside from pretending reddit doesn't exist: do a couple dry runs. No meat, just focus on keeping your temp and smoke rate steady for the duration of a cook, which is going to be 6-20+ hours. I do them every time I get a new smoker to check for hot spots and leaks, and then at the beginning of the season again to see if winter changed anything. A lot more better to find out you've got air leaks or your temperatures are way off without an expensive cut of meat or a concrete time you need to have food ready for. 

Foil duct work tape is really good for sealing air leaks.

TAKE YOUR COOK TEMPERATURE  BESIDEBESIDE YOUR MEAT. Adjust accordingly. If your grill says 250, make sure it actually is. Not sure how that applies with an electric grill, but important to keep in mind real temp vs programmed temp, and where it's reading from vs where you're actually cooking.

Yeah smoking in practice is very forgiving, and with electric you've basically got an outdoor oven. Apply whatever smoking wood you desire, take meat add seasoning, hit it with 225-350 degree heat, wrap or don't, take off when at whatever temperature you want.

I've got a big green egg and with that you've got to manage the fire just a smidgen. I just have the basic external thermometer but my brother likes his Bluetooth one. He has both electric and BGE, for messing around will use the egg but if say hosting a meal, will put on a pork butt/brisket/etc., set it up in the evening, let it run all night, and take off at say 10 am. Digital thermometer will message if hits target temp earlier and if so, as mentioned a long rest isn't required but doesn't hurt. I've done this with the egg but normally peak at temps once or twice and adjust airflow. 

RevRico said:

TAKE YOUR COOK TEMPERATURE  BESIDEBESIDE YOUR MEAT. Adjust accordingly. If your grill says 250, make sure it actually is. Not sure how that applies with an electric grill, but important to keep in mind real temp vs programmed temp, and where it's reading from vs where you're actually cooking.

I use Thermopro's Temp Spike. It takes internal temp as well as cooking temp right at the meat. https://buythermopro.com/tempspike/

It has been the most durable and most accurate temp probe I've tried. It also has the best range. 

Toyman! said:

Don't sauce it. The sauce should be on the side unless the meat is terrible. 

i don't cook, but i eat, and i can agree 100% with this statement.

Excellent advice from others so far and a fun thing to do when you have some time.

I've had a pretty basic Masterbuilt electric smoker for about 10 years.  It has a very simple plug in style dial heat control that cycles the heating element.  Too help improve temperature control I gasketed the door to reduce leakage and that helped quite a bit.

It makes smoke by heating a stainless steel tray that sits directly on the element.  That works just OK so I started experimenting with getting a couple of charcoal brickets hot to help keep the chips going.  What seems to work best with mine is using a fatwood stick broken / split into a few pieces and then put 3-4 brickets on top.  Light that off sitting on top of the smoker and let it get the brickets going, then add chips on top and place the tray into the smoker.  I check it about every 45 minutes adding chips as needed to keep the smoke steady.

I just did a 4 pound pork butt last week as shown above for pulled pork.  I make my own rub mix that's a mix of brown sugar, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, a bit of cayenne pepper, and a small bit of salt.  I let the butt sit in the refrigerator wrapped up for a couple of days before smoking and then put it in the smoker for about 4 hours at 275 to get a 165 internal temperature.  I then foil it to get it up to 205 or so for shredding, you can do that in a regular oven as well.

I've smoked whole chickens and fish with good result, I tried a brisket at one point but made the mistake of trying to multitask (yard work) figuring low and slow.  It was OK but to keep it moist you need to stay on task and monitor the internal temp more carefully than I did.  I'll try another at some point but pulled pork is so easy and such a crowd pleaser that it ends up being a go to.  

Toyman! said:

BBQ is pretty forgiving. That was the entire point of it back in the Dark Ages. A cheap piece of meat, cooked a long time at a low temperature to give it some tenderness and flavor.  

For your first foray, buy some store-bought rub, and smoke a pork butt at 225 to an internal temp of 200+. You will have an edible product that's pretty tasty.

All this here.

I'm not saying don't go nuts with temperature probes and measuring humidity and getting up at 3am to spritz some meat with cider vinegar and Dr. Pepper, because that's fun and all, but eventually you'll tire of it and realize that you can get 98.9% of the results with like 4% of the effort and that's really favorable math.

Amazingribs.com is a pretty damn good place to start. Meathead guy knows his stuff. Also on YouTube, the dawgfatha does brisket pretty beautifully. 

A lot of us picked up these cool 10-cigarette packs they were giving out free at one of the 80's Camel GT races.  Always enjoyed smoking those Camel Lights.

JG Pasterjak said:

Toyman! said:

BBQ is pretty forgiving. That was the entire point of it back in the Dark Ages. A cheap piece of meat, cooked a long time at a low temperature to give it some tenderness and flavor.  

For your first foray, buy some store-bought rub, and smoke a pork butt at 225 to an internal temp of 200+. You will have an edible product that's pretty tasty.

All this here.

I'm not saying don't go nuts with temperature probes and measuring humidity and getting up at 3am to spritz some meat with cider vinegar and Dr. Pepper, because that's fun and all, but eventually you'll tire of it and realize that you can get 98.9% of the results with like 4% of the effort and that's really favorable math.

My standard procedure is to throw a butt in the smoker on the way to the shop on a Saturday morning. I may spritz it with apple cider vinegar a couple of times for the fun of it but from there I can mostly ignore it and have a BBQ that is every bit as good as anything you can get in a restaurant. Total time spent is a couple of hours in prep and finishing. 

Every once in a while I drag out the big offset smoker and go hog wild with it. It makes for some of the best BBQ you will ever have but it's going to take 10 hours of babysitting to get it done right. 

The good news is there really isn't a wrong way to smoke a piece of meat. I don't think I've ever done a bad one. Even the time I've caught the smoker on fire with an entire hog on it, the meat was pretty tasty. Some of them will come out better than others. Some more tender. Some more flavorful. All of them will be better than just throwing it in an oven with some liquid smoke. 

Toyman! said:

RevRico said:

TAKE YOUR COOK TEMPERATURE  BESIDEBESIDE YOUR MEAT. Adjust accordingly. If your grill says 250, make sure it actually is. Not sure how that applies with an electric grill, but important to keep in mind real temp vs programmed temp, and where it's reading from vs where you're actually cooking.

I use Thermopro's Temp Spike. It takes internal temp as well as cooking temp right at the meat. https://buythermopro.com/tempspike/

It has been the most durable and most accurate temp probe I've tried. It also has the best range. 

This arrives this afternoon.  Thank you Amazon gift cards for Christmas!

And so it begins. I rubbed down a hunk of pork last night with mystery rub Nicole made from the spice cabinet:

Then I put some Post Oak chips into the smoking box, put it on the grill, and set the hunk of pork next to it. Now we wait.

It's in the 40s today and I got a late start, so I'm starting at 275 degrees.

No, this isn't a real smoker or an ideal setup, but I'm betting I still get something edible.

Wish me luck!

Tom Suddard said:

 

No, this isn't a real smoker or an ideal setup, but I'm betting I still get something edible.

 

Anything that makes smoke and cooks with indirect heat is a "real" smoker. People have been cooking like this for thousands of years, even before bluetooth temperature probes were invented. 

Set it and forget it and enjoy dinner

It's happening!

What is this electricity of which you speak? LOL
 

This is pork loin. Apple cider vinegar, red wine vinegar, apple sauce, fresh black pepper, paprika, red pepper, white pepper, Texas Pete, Tabasco, Worcestershire, mustard, sea salt, fresh basil, fresh rosemary, etc... as you like.  let the pork marinate for a few hours before you put it on. 

Check the pork every 30ish minutes, probably not as necessary with electric. Add wood as necessary to maintain the temperature. Check the internal temperature every time you you open the  smoker unless you have one of those remote deals. Close all the vents on the grill to douse the fire. Then open them enough to maintain the coals and temperature. I use a combo of charcoal and hickory wood.