drippings
New member
I thought I would share my experiences with my 1st 2 smokes this past weekend. 1st I want to thank Divot for helping me out when I got into a bind on Saturday with the Auber. I was in a jam and I PM'd him and he responded within minutes and saved my butt. Well, not my butt, but Porky's butt that had been in the smoker for 30 minutes. More on that a little further down. For my 1st smoke I did a couple of 6.5# chickens. I brined the 2 birds in a 3.5 gal bucket that my local Publix Supermarket gave me from the Bakery Dept. It is a bucket that they had gotten frosting in. So if you are looking for food grade buckets to do your brining in - check out your local supermarket and get 1 or 2 for free if they are willing. Call first and talk to a manager and they will probably oblige. In my case, the call ahead was what finally scored me the buckets. I use about 1 1/4 cups of salt per gallon of water and then offset the salt with about the same amount of brown sugar. That neutralizes the taste so it isn't salty tasting. Add whatever other flavorings your tastebuds desire into the brine mix. Put the brine in the fridge to get it cooled down and then drop whatever meat you are brining into the buckets. I let these 2 birds bathe in the brine for about 20 hours. On Friday, I smoked the birds at 237 degrees to an IT of 165. I used about 4 oz of Apple/Hickory mix for the wood. Will go more next time, as it wasn't real smokey to me. But I like things a little more smoked. Also, I say about 4 ozs, and that is just a guess. Maybe I actually had less than that. I need to get a kitchen scale I guess. I wrapped the birds in foil and let them sit about an hour. Oh yeah, I seasoned them with a little rub and mustard with orange zest before I put them in the smoker. Probably won't do the mustard and orange zest on a chicken again though. We ate 1 of them Friday night and it was unbelievably moist and tender. It was REAL good. Not a lot of the flavoring got into the breast meat, but the juiciness and tenderness of the breast way than more made up for the lack of flavor penetration.
Thursday night I also brined the 9# pork butt that I would be smoking on Saturday. Friday evening I pulled the butt out of the brine bucket and de-boned it. I de-bone because I like thin sliced pork butt and my slicer doesn't like bones. After I had the bone out I rubbed it with a kinda spicy concoction of rub that a friend gave me. I can't remember what all is in it. Use your favorite rub...I know you have one. I then tied the butt up into a nice shape for my slicer with butcher twine or whatever it is called. STRING. I put it back in the fridge overnight to soak it all in. Saturday I got the #2 and the Auber 1204 all set up. I programmed the Auber to do a 30minute warm up at 130 degrees and then to go to 225 until an IT of 175 was achieved. Put the butt in with a loaf pan of water and about maybe 8 oz of Apple/ Hickory wood mix. Butt on about the middle rack position and the Auber cabin temp probe hanging about 2" above the butt. About 40 minutes into the smoke, my Auber went nutso. The display of the cabin temp was going wild showing High Temp alarm from 200's all the way up to 391, and everything in between. Over and over. I had no idea what to do. I shut the Auber off for about a minute and turned it back on again, but it still did the same thing. I checked to make sure I had the right probes plugged into the right places and they were correct. I finally unhooked the Auber and let the SI#2 handle the smoke on it's own. I didn't know if I could use the Auber just to monitor the IT of the meat, but I tried and it could do that. So I got through the smoke okay. I shot a video of the Auber doing it's crazy thing and shot it over to Divot. He said I either had a whole bad Auber unit or that the #1 cabin temp probe was bad. He voluntarily forwarded my video to Steve at Smokin-It and he made sure with me that I had programmed the Auber correctly, which he said I had. Thank you again, Tony for your help. You are awesome.
The butt hit 170 in just over 8 hrs and I decided to take it out. I was going to go to 175, but being my first butt smoke on this thing, I started getting nervous about the meat getting dry. Wasn't used to them taking that long due to the experiences I had with my offset smoker. I always had short periods of time that the temp would get away from me - like into the 300's. So obviously that cut down the cook times. Usually 6 hours for a butt this size on the offset. I knew this, but still I was nervous about the 8+ hours this was taking.
I would have been perfectly fine to have left it in until it reached 175. Next time I won't fret it. So i took it out, wrapped it in foil to cool down and then put it in the fridge till the nest day...Sunday. Early Sunday afternoon I took it out of the fridge and sliced it with the slicer. Real thin. After slicing we vacuum packed it in about 6-8 oz portions and took it to a friends house 1 1/2 hrs away. When we got there we heated up a large pot with about 180 degree water and put the packages in to reheat. About 20 minutes. Took em out cut em open and served on garlic toast. WOW! Best pork butt I have ever done. Amazingly tender and moist. Man it was good eatin'. But the truly amazing thing was that we also had vac packed one of the chickens that we did not eat on Friday night. We put it in the fridge that night and also took it with us on Sunday to the friends house. It spent approx 45 minutes in the 180 degree water to reheat. It tasted, and I am not exaggerating, EXACTLY like the one we ate on Friday night right out of the smoker. Not a hint of the weird reheated chicken taste. It was still just as moist and tender as Friday night's bird. So vacuum packing and reheating in hot water while still in the vacuum bags is the only way to go IMHO.
So even though I had a small hiccup on my butt, the SI2 still produced the best butt I have ever smoked. And, the easiest butt I have ever smoked - even with the hiccup. So glad I no longer have to constantly monitor the stick burner for hours and hope hope hope that the end result would be edible. LOVE my Smokin-It cooker! I will shut up now and attempt to post some pics to go with all of my babbling.
Thursday night I also brined the 9# pork butt that I would be smoking on Saturday. Friday evening I pulled the butt out of the brine bucket and de-boned it. I de-bone because I like thin sliced pork butt and my slicer doesn't like bones. After I had the bone out I rubbed it with a kinda spicy concoction of rub that a friend gave me. I can't remember what all is in it. Use your favorite rub...I know you have one. I then tied the butt up into a nice shape for my slicer with butcher twine or whatever it is called. STRING. I put it back in the fridge overnight to soak it all in. Saturday I got the #2 and the Auber 1204 all set up. I programmed the Auber to do a 30minute warm up at 130 degrees and then to go to 225 until an IT of 175 was achieved. Put the butt in with a loaf pan of water and about maybe 8 oz of Apple/ Hickory wood mix. Butt on about the middle rack position and the Auber cabin temp probe hanging about 2" above the butt. About 40 minutes into the smoke, my Auber went nutso. The display of the cabin temp was going wild showing High Temp alarm from 200's all the way up to 391, and everything in between. Over and over. I had no idea what to do. I shut the Auber off for about a minute and turned it back on again, but it still did the same thing. I checked to make sure I had the right probes plugged into the right places and they were correct. I finally unhooked the Auber and let the SI#2 handle the smoke on it's own. I didn't know if I could use the Auber just to monitor the IT of the meat, but I tried and it could do that. So I got through the smoke okay. I shot a video of the Auber doing it's crazy thing and shot it over to Divot. He said I either had a whole bad Auber unit or that the #1 cabin temp probe was bad. He voluntarily forwarded my video to Steve at Smokin-It and he made sure with me that I had programmed the Auber correctly, which he said I had. Thank you again, Tony for your help. You are awesome.
The butt hit 170 in just over 8 hrs and I decided to take it out. I was going to go to 175, but being my first butt smoke on this thing, I started getting nervous about the meat getting dry. Wasn't used to them taking that long due to the experiences I had with my offset smoker. I always had short periods of time that the temp would get away from me - like into the 300's. So obviously that cut down the cook times. Usually 6 hours for a butt this size on the offset. I knew this, but still I was nervous about the 8+ hours this was taking.
I would have been perfectly fine to have left it in until it reached 175. Next time I won't fret it. So i took it out, wrapped it in foil to cool down and then put it in the fridge till the nest day...Sunday. Early Sunday afternoon I took it out of the fridge and sliced it with the slicer. Real thin. After slicing we vacuum packed it in about 6-8 oz portions and took it to a friends house 1 1/2 hrs away. When we got there we heated up a large pot with about 180 degree water and put the packages in to reheat. About 20 minutes. Took em out cut em open and served on garlic toast. WOW! Best pork butt I have ever done. Amazingly tender and moist. Man it was good eatin'. But the truly amazing thing was that we also had vac packed one of the chickens that we did not eat on Friday night. We put it in the fridge that night and also took it with us on Sunday to the friends house. It spent approx 45 minutes in the 180 degree water to reheat. It tasted, and I am not exaggerating, EXACTLY like the one we ate on Friday night right out of the smoker. Not a hint of the weird reheated chicken taste. It was still just as moist and tender as Friday night's bird. So vacuum packing and reheating in hot water while still in the vacuum bags is the only way to go IMHO.
So even though I had a small hiccup on my butt, the SI2 still produced the best butt I have ever smoked. And, the easiest butt I have ever smoked - even with the hiccup. So glad I no longer have to constantly monitor the stick burner for hours and hope hope hope that the end result would be edible. LOVE my Smokin-It cooker! I will shut up now and attempt to post some pics to go with all of my babbling.
