British BBQ Society Forums

My girlfriend and I hosted a party this weekend. Working away from home during the week and with busy weekends has meant I've not had chance to play with my flower pot smoker since the first trial cook. So I was sat at work last week, having found a good butcher in Manchester by chance, thinking.... hmmm I wonder if I should get some pork shoulders to try on Saturday. One lunch break later and I had 2 3.5lb bone in pork shoulders. I figured, even if people weren't bothered about it at the party, then I'd have plenty for sandwiches the following week and I'd get to smoke something.

I start early on Saturday morning, warming up the smoker and applying the rub. I'm still trying to figure out how best to add wood into the smoker to get a constant even supply of smoke, but started it with a chunk of oak. The meat went on about 8:30 and apart from me messing with the wood and smoke a little early on, went about its business without too much fuss. I'd hooked up the new maverick 732 I got a few weeks ago from Dave on this forum, and that makes things sooooo much easier!

The cook continued and I went out to the pub for a few hours with it about 65C, by the time I got back it was about 72C and then sat there for a couple of hours and I figured it'd stalled. I then foiled them, and I don't know if the probe was replaced closer to the middle this time but the read out appeared to drop 7C down to 65C again. It continued to creep up and about 10PM hit 90C and I took them off and rested for about 45mins. After opening up the foil they looked and smelled great. The chunks of meat came apart with no effort and I then shredded it up and served with home made coleslaw, buns, jalepenos, gerkins and some home made BBQ sauce. I only shredded one initially as there weren't that many people and it was easily enough for at least one sandwich each. Very quickly people were asking about a second round so I shredded up the second and that dissappeared in a similar fashion! There was just enough left for 2 small rolls the day after.

Very pleased with the results, and clearly so were other people!

[thumbpop]http://i689.photobucket.com/albums/vv254/ericharth/Flower%20pot%20smoker/IMG_20140222_155016.jpg[/thumbpop]

Well done Eric! Cracking job, and reading this you did everything right - except for using the correct temperature scale ;P (NB, I work in centigrade for *everything* except barbecue!)

It made me chuckle at the start of your post when you pondered over whether there would be much leftovers. Seems impossible with pulled pork!

Well done

Nothing like watching people demolish your pulled pork and asking for more, great job!!

You now know you'll be expected to do bbq at every party you have

slatts wrote:Nothing like watching people demolish your pulled pork and asking for more, great job!!

That sums up what I enjoy about having people come around, you cant get better than that.
Well done.

Thanks all, it was pleasing to see people enjoying the food so much, even it did leave me without leftovers! Need to select the next thing to experiment with. Need to see if I can get some jalapeños from the Chinese market next door to where I'm staying in Manchester. Really fancy doing some jalapeño poppers in the next cook alongside the main feature. What would people suggest? More pork, some chicken, or try and pull off a brisket?

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Make sure you know your cooker well before you attempt brisket, or you could easily end up with a very dry tough piece of meat. However, when brisket is done right, it's hard to beat it.

My suggestion would be to try some ribs (3-2-1 method) and maybe some chicken thighs or a couple of chickens, then another crack at pork shoulder. If you get all that under your belt you should know your smoker inside out - you'll have used it in different wind / rain conditions, different temperatures, and cuts of meat that require different attention.

With that said, if you're dying to try a brisket and feel confident enough, go for it! The advice I have learnt is to foil at 150F with some stock, then keep it going til it hits 200F. That basic rule of thumb has produced some amazing results.

Cheers Rob, I'm not in any rush to go for the brisket. I like the idea of ribs, and a whole chicken. I think they might be a good place to head next.

Chicken is great, especially if you can get hold of some hickory, homebase sometimes stock it (if not I can give you enough for a smoke). The wife's favourite bbq is chicken, so I've erred towards doing thighs instead of whole birds - moister, no risk of undercooked thigh and overcooked breast, and takes a fraction of the time.

Pulled pork and leftovers? There's a few words that rarely get used in the same sentence