So if you’re just learning how to smoke low and slow, a great place to start is with a bone-in Boston butt. I just can’t describe how delicious, fun, easy, and great this whole process is. You have to experience it for yourself to really know what I’m talking about.

Last month, I cooked a couple pork butts for my son Jamin’s first birthday party. Now I want to share some pictures and tips for cooking delicious pulled pork everyone will love.

Some experts will tell you to use fresh butts that were never frozen and some tell you to inject or marinate the meat overnight and some will tell you to let them rest for 30 minutes or so after they’re done before you pull them. This is great, and if you feel like doing the extra work, waiting, etc, you should probably do it.

But I can tell you, some of the best pulled pork I ever had was from a thawed pork butt, and I applied the rub just minutes before I set them on the smoker, and we were in no mood to wait half an hour to eat. And I promise it was extremely edible.

So my favorite theory in barbecue is this: barbecue is easy! (Once you have someone to teach you and you get some practice.) Of course, there are extra things you can do to make it better, but don’t let this stuff intimidate you. It is NOT rocket science, even competition style barbeque.

BBQ is about having a great time with family and friends, making memories, and producing some of the most delicious food on the planet.

Here are a few pictures from Jamin’s birthday barbecue and the train birthday cake my wife made. 

Click a photo to enlarge it.

How to Smoke Pork Butts

Here are a few quick tips on how to make your own outrageous pulled pork.

• Get your smoker up to 225–250 degrees F.
• Start with fresh or thawed pork butt with some nice fat marbling. The fat adds a lot of flavor and helps keep the meat juicy.
• Unwrap the meat, rinse it, and cut off any bloody, nasty-looking stuff.
• Cover it with yellow mustard (the kind you’d put on a hotdog). Sprinkle a generous layer of your favorite pork rub over the entire surface (edges, cracks, and all). Pat it down with your hand. Disposable gloves are handy for this.
• Load the meat onto the smoker grate and close the smoker.
• Add some fruit wood or your favorite smoking wood to the fire to kick up the smoke at the beginning. We smoke mostly with 100% hardwood charcoal briquettes and add a few pieces of wood at the beginning to create more smoke. The meat takes in more smoke when it’s cold than once it’s been in the heat for a while.
• Maintain your smoker at 225-250 degrees F.
• Spray the meat with apple juice about every hour to help keep the meat moist throughout the cook.
• Cook the meat for about 1½ hours per pound or until the internal temperature of the meat reaches about 200 degrees. This can easily take 8 hours or even 12 hours depending on the size of the meat and what the weather is like, etc.
• Extra tip: If the meat reaches the 170s and just hangs there for an hour or two, your butts might be ready to pull off. Sample it for tenderness and see how well it pulls apart. You want to be careful not to dry it out. Ultimately, you will need to determine when it’s done. This takes some skill, but remember, pork butts are easy to cook and hard to mess up if you keep the temperature fairly consistent.
• Pull it into small chunks or strips with forks or gloved hands.
• Eat it with hamburger buns (or homemade bread), cheese, and your favorite barbecue sauce. I enjoy coleslaw (finely-shredded) on my pulled pork sandwiches too.

How to Store Left-Over Pulled Pork

Here’s a great way to deal with left-over pulled pork. Freeze it in quart-size freezer bags. When you’re ready to eat some, thaw one bag in the refrigerator, and then put it in a kettle of water over medium low heat.

Indescribable!

Lavern

Click on a photo to enlarge it.

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons butter
4 cups sliced peppers
2 cups sliced onions
Favorite barbecue rub
1/4 cup barbecue sauce
10 brats

Lay the brats on your grill grate and season them with your favorite rub. Grill the brats over direct heat until they are well browned on two sides.

Once the brats are cooking on the grill, put a skillet on the stovetop or an outdoor burner, such as your grill side burner. Brown the butter in the skillet, then add the peppers and onions. Stir these often to keep them from burning. After it cooks down add a liberal sprinkling of rub and the barbecue sauce. Mix it well.

Serve the grilled brats on hotdog buns or homemade bread with the topping and sliced cheese. You may also enjoy ketchup, mustard, and other condiments with your sandwiches.

Extremely easy and edible!

Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Enjoy!

Lavern

Here’s my gift to you this holiday season:

How to Grill Chicken Breasts

I hope you enjoy the recipe. 

Lavern Gingerich

I want to let you know that we won’t be taking calls or answering e-mails for a couple days over the holiday. But plan to open back up on Monday.It doesn’t look like we’ll be able to smoke up a turkey for Thanksgiving Day—an oven-cooked one will have to do. But if you’ve got that on your agenda, here is an article I wrote that will walk you through the steps of smoking a turkey in a BBQ smoker:

How to Smoke a Turkey in a BBQ Pit

Wishing you a great holiday as you count your blessings with family and friends.

Thank you,

Lavern Gingerich

PS. On your day off, why not take some time to browse our catalog of award-winning BBQ smokers from Meadow Creek.

Sliced Smoked Brisket

One of our goals here at Yoder’s Smoky Mountain Barbecue is to help barbecue enthusiasts and caterers enjoy easy and profitable barbecues for years to come.

We want to help you experience the delicious adventure of slow cooking and grilling, whether it’s for your family, friends, or customers.

As promised, I just wrote a new article on how to smoke brisket in an offset barbecue smoker. It will help you smoke a tender and delicious brisket even if you’ve never smoked a brisket before. I have also included an expert brisket rub recipe you can use to make your own homemade rub!

If you have questions about smoking a brisket, make sure you read my article. It’s not as hard to smoke beef brisket as you might think!

Brisket Recipe: How to Smoke a Beef Brisket

If this is helpful, please leave a comment on this blog post and let me know. 

Or become a fan of my Facebook page and upload a photo of your latest BBQ. Once you are a fan of my page, you will need to type a comment in the “What’s on your mind” box, and then you will see a “Photos” link to upload a photo.

I hope you enjoy your brisket smoke and don’t forget to tell me how it went.

Lavern

Are you looking for an easy step-by-step guide for smoking a whole turkey?  I just published a video and an article on how to smoke a turkey in a BBQ smoker with charcoal.

You’ll find smoking a turkey is not that difficult. Once you discover how easy it is and you take your first bite, I hope you’ll want to make it a tradition every holiday season!

The video and the article both walk you through all the steps of smoking a turkey. In a few minutes you can be equipped with the knowledge you need to go buy your turkey and fire up the smoker.

Video: How to Smoke a Turkey
Article: How to Smoke a Turkey

Most times when you smoke, you will need to add more charcoal partly through the smoke. If you let too much of your charcoal burn up before adding more fuel, the temperature will drop dramatically and it will take longer than necessary for the new charcoal to make heat. This can be disappointing, especially if you have a deadline to meet and you don’t have time to lose.

This is especially bad if it’s cold outside or it’s raining and you open the smoking chamber door to check your meat. Under these conditions, we have found it can easily take up to 30 minutes to totally regain optimum smoking temperature.

Smoker Firebox Ready for More Charcoal

On the other hand, remember you don’t want a lot of extra charcoal in the firebox after you’re done. Be careful not to add too much toward the end of your smoke.

So keep some extra charcoal nearby and watch that firebox!

The danger zone where harmful bacteria can multiply is between 40 and 140 degrees F. So leaving your meat in the danger zone too long could be bad news. Handle your meat with care and try to keep it hot until it’s time to eat it.

What is the best way to keep your meat hot and juicy?

Our favorite way is to wrap it in aluminum foil and place it inside an ice chest. If you’d like, you can wrap it in heavy duty plastic wrap first to keep more of the heat and moisture inside.

When grilling chicken, you can take the chicken off the grill about an hour before it’s time to eat and place it in an ice chest lined with aluminum foil, letting the chicken cook with it’s own heat. This works for different kinds of meat, but it generally works best with meat off the grill than off the smoker since meat off the grill is usually hotter.

We prefer to use foil and an ice chest to retain the heat in the meat rather than letting the meat cool off and reheating it. If you’re one of those still learning your timing or just want to get done early for some reason, aluminum foil is the way to go!

Do you have any other ideas for keeping barbeque hot and juicy? If you have a bbq tip to share, please leave a comment.

Lavern Gingerich

PS. Don’t miss our bbq tips in the articles and videos section. There’s some juicy stuff over there!

Here is a new video we produced that explains a secret the experts use to smoke or grill some of the juiciest barbecue you’ve ever tasted.

You can easily do this yourself, and the great part about it is this—it’s cheap, fun, and easy!

Click here now to learn how the experts cook juicy barbecue.

Just make sure you don’t use the family garden sprayer that had weed killer in it! I don’t want to hear any sad stories of cancer or death because you followed my advice.

Learn this juicy little tip, play it safe, and enjoy. We wish you the best in your barbecue endeavors.

A single search in Google for “barbeque smokers” brings up enough results to make your head spin if you try to research every company making and selling smokers.

Besides, if you’re not careful you can start comparing apples to lemons—comparing a $4,000 smoker with a $2,800 one and not realizing how different they really are!

There might be a good reason for that price difference. Sometimes it’s because of expensive features that are not included in the base price of the cheaper model.

Have you been comparing apples to lemons? Are you confused about which features are important?

I’d like to make your research a little easier by showing you 7 Things You Should Know Before You Buy a Barbeque Smoker.

Let me teach you some aspects of a high quality barbeque smoker that will provide many years of dependable service and keep you smiling for a long time.

Make sure you don’t miss these valuable tips.