British BBQ Society Forums

Woke up late yesterday morning, having intended to start a fire around 5am. I already knew I was in for a long haul as I didn't get the meat on the go until just gone 10am.

Cooking up were a rack of baby back ribs (my first back ribs), a chicken, and a pork butt which will be shredded, frozen and eaten next weekend. Chicken and ribs were done to perfection about 5:30 - add in some resting time and we had good eating for dinner last night!

However, the pork butt, of course, being a 12lb beast, soldiered on. I had roughly calculated an 18 hour smoke, taking me through til about 4am, but things started to go wrong.... First of all, I dozed off on the sofa after dinner, waking at about 10pm only to find the fire had dwindled and the butt internal temp was starting to drop. Having had 12 hours of cherry smoke, I decided to bring it inside, foil it, and cook in the oven for the remaining time. I went to bed about 1am, setting alarms for every 2 hours to check the temps.

3am - 185
5am - 185
7am - 185
8am - 185

Something is awry here. I rummaged around and found my old bi-metallic thermometer, which instantly jumped to over 200F!

So, presumably, my trusty electronic probe has died a death. It's taken some punishment (despite having only owned it a year). The wife has twice submerged it in liquid, it's been frozen, it's been cooked in the sun until the display went black, it's been dropped and generally abused and has at last said its final "f**k you!".

While my (potentially ruined) pork butt rests before shredding, I'm already sitting here contemplating my next thermometer. I'm considering a wireless probe (I hear good things about Maverick, but I also hear you sometimes get a poor one), and hooking it up to a baby monitor, so that I can hear the alarm go off in my bedroom if temps drop / go over while I'm sleeping (I know of no wireless rig that has the range needed for me to be able to do this without the baby monitor, unless someone can point me in the right direction).

Well, that's about it really, just venting and ranting cause I'm tired and have possibly ruined a great piece of pork :S

If you can wait ETI have a dual probe, bluetooth monitor coming out soon that claims to have a long range but I don't know any details other then those on the associated thread.

http://www.bbbqs.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=2217

I realise I am a bit late here, but you could have foiled your pork and thrown in some apple juice, letting it rest should be absolutely fine, 200 isnt over cooked by any stretch.

Hell yeah, that ETI looks great! I'm planning a bacon wrapped turducken for Christmas Day but that is easy enough to do with the old bimetal thermometer, so I may hold out for this to come out!

Toby, as usual, my fears with regard to my pork shoulder were baseless. I have experienced this before (fell asleep and forgot to set an alarm, woke at 8am to find pork at 220F!) and it always turns out fine. Seems pork shoulder is extremely forgiving. I left this one foiled while it rested (it was covered tight for the whole oven cook) for an hour, then pulled and it was fall apart tender. There were a couple of parts of it that were less tender than others, but I stirred all the juices back in once it was pulled and it is perfectly moist overall now, and a very tasty joint, thanks to 12 hours of cherry smoke. I'm looking forward to eating it next week!

Maybe if you ask nicely Santa will get you a new thermometer

Well, that ETI jobby isn't on the market yet. I might have to rely the old bimetal probes for the next few months! Learning bbq has taught be to be patient, which was *not* one of my strong points I have to admit!