Second Smoke - Pork

Coming off my successful first bbq (chicken), I figured it was time to test my skills with some pork. My weekend schedules have been pretty crowded and I wanted to get started on this as soon as possible. The Sunday after a family reunion was the chosen day. The plan was to be home by 11:00 so I could get to the store and start smoking by 1:00 and eat around 7:00. That was the plan. Turned out car problems put me home at 5:00. Still extremely giddy to start this I stupidly began. Started the chimney of charcoal and headed for the store to pick up the meat and seasonings.

Now, not knowing a great deal about meats it's little daunting with all the cuts available today. I ended up with a "picnic roast", boneless with the strings on it. Nicely shaped, inexpensive, gand just the right size (5 lbs). From my reading I understand that anything outside of chicken is going to need a rub of some kind. Living outside of KC, I've had some awesome smoked pork and searched for a familiar recipe. Ended up going with this:

Oklahoma Joe's Pulled Pork


Rubbed that all over the pork. Didn't really smell or taste that good but this was my first rub of anykind so what hell did I know. Anyway the schedule of events:

5:00 Chimney full of coals started

6:00 Another chimney on bottom of firebox, white hot coals on top. Pork added.

8:00 Squirted with apple juice

10:00 Squirted with apple juice

12:00 Pork up to 175 and pulled off the grill, put in refrigerator

Now here's where I chronicle what I did wrong. Number one the night before I stayed up til 4AM drinking at aforementioned family reunion. Which makes extremely tired today and thus unable to finish the smoke and ultimately ruining this whole endeaver. The meat was cooked all the way through but not tender at all, certainly no where near be able to "pull". The rub was disgusting and toxic.

All around disaster.

Lessons learned:

1) Don't start an 8 hour smoke at 5PM when you are tired and hungover, regardless of how excited you are.

2) Nothing about this process can be rushed.

Next up, probably another couple chickens as that was a huge hit and I still have a little more to learn on getting temperatures right on the smoker.