USVI-On-Line

The butts are on. Been on since about 6:15 pm EDT. Should be ready about 12:15 pm tomorrow +/-. Will give you a look when they get ready to rest.

I couldn't wait.

Butts ready after rub and cooling


Butts on the grill


More to come tomorrow.

RickG-Ron_l-HELP. Everything was going great. Went to bed, internal Egg temp was at 225-230. This morning when I woke up the internal Egg temp was slightly over 100 and internal meat was 124. I immediately removed everything and ramped up the fire. Internal Egg temp is now 300+. Internal meat temp is 136. If I continue to cook and bring meat to internal 200 and hold it there for 1-2 hours is it likely the meat is safe, or am I just completely out of luck. This is bayer on pjayer login.

HELP!!!

Everything is fine, remain calm. Cooking above 160F will kill any possible pathogens. If it looks good and smells good it is. If you have an taint it is going to be along the bone; when you pull it apart smell it, if it smells good then eat it; if you're not certain then that is probably your brain getting in the way of your nose.

You need to play with your egg to learn how to damp it properly and get the right charcoal load. I tend to put the hot fire on the side of the wind and unlit charcoal on the downwind side. But, I don't have a marvelous green ceramic piece of art yet.

Cheers, RickG

RickG wrote:Everything is fine, remain calm. Cooking above 160F will kill any possible pathogens. If it looks good and smells good it is. If you have an taint it is going to be along the bone; when you pull it apart smell it, if it smells good then eat it; if you're not certain then that is probably your brain getting in the way of your nose.

You need to play with your egg to learn how to damp it properly and get the right charcoal load. I tend to put the hot fire on the side of the wind and unlit charcoal on the downwind side. But, I don't have a marvelous green ceramic piece of art yet.

Cheers, RickG

As bayer says, it's good to know people who know stuff. Thanks, RickG.

Now we can stop cussing, stomping, and gnashing our teeth.

Rick-Thanks so much.

As for smell, so far, the smell is great. The internal temperature of the meat has just now reached 200 degrees and it has been fully cooking for another 4 hours this morning. We'll find out about the internal smell once we take it off the bone.

As for damping, I'm sure I closed down both airflow vents (top and bottom) too much last night. I didn't want to let it get too hot and apparently erred in the other direction. In addition to that, it was a very damp night here and there was a lot of dew. I am wondering if the combination of the vents being closed too much and the damp air both played into this. We had little to no breeze when we started and into the night. There has been a slight breeze this morning, so I'm not sure what changes I could have made there.

It's all a learning process and boy, was this a lesson.

Here are the latest photos

Butts ready to come off grill



Butts at rest


Wish us luck.

It sounds like you starved your fire. I don't think the dew is a real factor. I routinely sleep next to a big burn (150 pounds of bbq gone bad is a big loss) and my sleeping bag sometimes gets puddles on top from condensation. One of the best bbqs we ever did had torrential rains all night with water running in through the chimneys - extra tender!!

Cheers, RickG

Thanks. We'll do better next time. Rookie mistakes. Oh well.

bayer40601 wrote:Thanks. We'll do better next time. Rookie mistakes. Oh well.

It happens... The best advice I've received was from a veteran Egger... He told me to "trust the Egg". Once you get the temps stabilized and holding steady for a while, don't mess with it. I made the same mistake on one of my first Egg cooks. I ended up adjusting the vent so much that I was chasing the temperature all around where i wanted it.

We're smoking more butts this weekend, and this time we're using a meat thermometer with an alarm. So...food porn soon come. Does anyone have a good rub recipe? I like a spicy rub that's not too sweet.

We forgot to post our pulled pork results from Labor Day weekend, but it was amazingly wonderful in each and every way. Makes my mouth water to think about it. I love my EGG.

Augie, did you cook your butts over LD? I kept watching for your pics, but didn't see any.

JoAnn, how's your EGG cooking? You in love yet?

pjayer wrote:Augie, did you cook your butts over LD? I kept watching for your pics, but didn't see any.

I wasn't able to that weekend - between my son's soccer tournament on Sat and Sun and helping my brother load a moving van on Mon I ran out of time.

I did cook two butts and a rack of spareribs the following weekend, but was multi-tasking too much to get pictures.

I'll get some up next cook - I promise!