# 4th of july ideas?



## utahgolf (Sep 8, 2007)

I wanna do some sort of sliced pork thing. any dry rubs/recipes would be great. all I have is an oven and grill, no smoker. thanks for any info.


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## Chaser (Sep 28, 2007)

Dry rub a pork butt, start it on the grill with a smoker box with hickory chips, then finish it in the oven low and slow. Then spend most of your day outside cuz the house is gonna be hot as hell!


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## Gumbo (Sep 22, 2007)

What kind of grill? I agree with Chaser in that you can cook indirect on a grill and add smoke. To cook indirect, you only want to heat half of the grill; get it hot and add the meat to the side without the fire beneath it. Get the smoke rolling and let it go for a few hours. Then plop that sucker in a crock pot or oven and you should be good. It's not the same as cooking it on a smoker, but it's still good.

If you need a rub, I posted a few good rub recipes on here. If you can't find them, let me know and I'll repost.

If you have a charcoal grill, you can cook indirect and add wood chunks for smoke. Works great.

If you have a gas grill, fire up one half of the grill and leave the other half unlet. Make a foil pouch and add some hickory chips, then seal up the pouch. Poke 4-5 holes in the foil pouch and place on tip of your lava rocks, etc so it's sitting on top of the fire, but below the grate.


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## utahgolf (Sep 8, 2007)

I have a propane grill, it has three different burners on it. how long on the grill and what temp? also where can I grab a smoker box? or is the foil the same thing?


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## Gumbo (Sep 22, 2007)

You can buy a smoker box or you can use the foil pouch. Use enough wood so it will keep smoking for several hours.

Hopefully your three burners run front-to-back rather than side-to-side. That way you can turn on the far right burner and place the meat on the left side away from the direct heat.

Do you have an oven thermometer? If not, they're only a few bucks at Target or Walmart. Place it on the grill and light up one of the burners. See how hot it gets, then adjust the flame so it maintains 250 plus or minus 50 degrees. But realistically you could cook it as hot as 350 and be just fine--pork butts is the most forgiving cut of meat there is.


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## utahgolf (Sep 8, 2007)

they run front to back and it has a temp guage on it. where do I place the wood chips? it just has a bottom drip pan under the burners, no lava rocks. and do I need to turn or wrap the pork butt in foil on the grill or just leave it uncovered? sorry, newb to trying smoker stuff.


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## Chaser (Sep 28, 2007)

Leave it uncovered so the smoke can get to it. Make sure to soak the woodchips in water before you get going so it helps them smolder slowly. Be careful how hot they get, or they'll light on fire, and then your smoke and temps will get outta whack. You can make a foil pouch, but if it gets too hot, it'll burn up and make a mess. Smoker boxes can be found anywhere from Walmart to the grocery store, to Bed Bath and Beyond. They are made of metal, approximately 4x2x10 in dimensions, and have holes in them to let out the smoke. When you buy woodchips for it, get ones small enough to fit into the box, but not so small its like sawdust. You can add more if you need to.


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## Gumbo (Sep 22, 2007)

If you use a foil pouch, you don't need to soak because air can't get to the chips and cause them to burn--they'll only smolder. Place the foil pouch directly on the burners (beneath the cooking grate).

As for the built-in thermo, they are deceiving because the temp isn't being measured at the cooking level. It can be 50* hotter at the thermometer level than at the grate level. So it's important to measure the temp at the cooking level.

I would apply the rub to the pork butt (Walmart has a good price on them right now), and put it in the grill uncovered. Use the fat cap as a buffer and direct it toward the heat. When I cook pork butts in my smoker, I don't even open the lid to check until after 8 hours or so. So no, you don't need to turn it or do anything. Just keep the temp in the right range.

A pork butt is done when it hits an internal temp of 192 - 205, depending on what you prefer. Another way to tell if it's done is to insert a kabob stick into the meat--it should go in like butter. Or wiggle/remove the bone--you can usually pull it out with two fingers when it's done.

If it comes out too dry for whatever reason, have some apple juice on hand, mix some of your rub or BBQ sauce with it, then pour it over the pulled meat. Also, when it's done, you can keep it for hours by wrapping it in foil and putting it into a cooler (no ice).

I cooked about 50 pounds of BBQ last weekend--it went pretty fast.


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## utahgolf (Sep 8, 2007)

thanks for the info! so 250 degrees for a few hours on the grill and how long in the oven on what temp?


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## Gumbo (Sep 22, 2007)

I'd keep it on the grill as long as it's smoking, but for at least an hour or two. I cook mine at 250, but you can cook them as hot as 300--and the cooking temp should be the same whether in the smoker, grill, oven, or crock pot. The idea with the low cooking temp is to render the fat and and break down the collagen.

I gave some suggestions above on when you can tell it's done. But the easiest method for a first-timer is an internal instand-read thermometer. They're pretty cheap at Target or some place like that. Anywhere between 192 and 205 and you should be good. And that internal temp probe should go into the meat like into butter.

Another thought here is you may want to foil your butt at 160 degrees internal.

Let us know how it turns out.


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