On Memorial Day, like many Americans, we decided to cook out. Well, in our case, smoke out. We smoked 2 pork shoulders our Isaac’s graduation party so we could serve pulled pork. We smoked something else but I don’t remember what it was off hand. I had seasoned both shoulders with salt and pepper, mostly pepper. Once the smoker was going, I cleaned the grates off with a grill brush and scraped any stuff that was flaking off the door and sides off. I had soaked the hickory wood chunks over night and once the coals were ready put the wood chunks in to start smoking. Once there was smoke and the smoker was at 225˚, I put the meat on and let it smoke. It seems like the meat took about 10 hours until it reached about 195˚. We pulled it off and let it rest on the counter for about an hour then pulled it apart. It had a good smoke flavor throughout the meat, unlike other recent attempts.
Fast forward a couple weeks to the week of the graduation party, we decided to smoke baked beans and chicken wings. Unlike last time, we only bought a 2# bag of dry beans and let them soak overnight. After they soaked for about 15 hours, we ringed them and boiled them for about an hour. While boiling the beans we prepared the “sauce” and added the beans once the boil was done and put them on the smoker for a couple of hours. We also put 3 racks worth of wings seasoned with salt and pepper and let them smoke with the beans. The beans turned out still pretty firm and the sauce wasn’t as “soupy” as I had wanted or expected. We may have to boil the beans longer the next time. The wings turned out well though.
Everyone enjoyed the wings and pulled pork, even teased one of the guests about enjoying my smoked meats. We ended up with roughly 1 pork shoulder worth of meat left. Although I wish it would have all been eaten, I am glad it was enjoyed and we were able to have left overs for about a week. From the left overs, we added it to an egg scramble with green bell peppers and onion the next morning and wrapped it in tortilla shells similar to breakfast burritos. That turned out to be really tasty. We also made pulled pork quesadillas with some of the left overs as well as the usual pulled pork sandwiches. It is a real confidence boost to see so many people enjoy the meat I smoke. Hopefully whatever I did with this smoke, I continue and the meat stays as flavorful as this time.
Smoking Meats and Recipies 