What Keeps Me Awake At Night

Not much keeps me awake but Friday night, I hardly slept. On Thursday night I had put a big pork butt in the smoker and was going to let it smoke all night. I went to bed with the remote thermometer by the bed and the meat temp was not rising above 122°. I thought about finishing it in the oven but didn’t feel comfortable eating it after it had sat at 122° for so long so I tossed it. I messed with the thermostat knob and the it felt different so I heated it up, with an oven thermometer inside and it seemed to be working. Vince went ahead and ordered a new thermostat and heating element for it but we decided to try again so we got another butt and I set the thermometer alarm for 200° but I still kept checking it all night to make sure it hadn’t stalled at an unsafe temp. I was probably awake 6 or 8 times checking that thermometer.

I put the butt on about 5 p.m. and sure enough . . about 12 hours later, it was done. I tried to be quiet but both dogs and Vince ended up with me at 5 a.m.

I wrapped the hot butt (that doesn’t sound right!) in pink butcher paper and stuck it in a cooler and I went back to bed for a couple of hours.

It was perfect  . . if I do say so myself. We had pulled pork sandwiches for lunch.

Since the purpose of the smoked butt was to make Brunswick Stew, I also smoked a chicken.

I did them separately because I used mesquite for the butt and cherry for the chicken. It probably wouldn’t have mattered since all the chicken is going into Brunswick Stew but I think mesquite is too strong for smoking chicken.

There was enough meat to put a combination of pork/chicken . . 2.5 pounds total, into the Brunswick Stew and have another 2.5 pound mixed bag for another batch. That one went into the freezer. Some of the stew will be frozen too so I’m thinking with the batch of stew I made Saturday and the bag of meat in the freezer, we won’t need to smoke any more meat for Brunswick Stew this winter.