Rob's Rants

The first week that I got my Bradley smoker, I made two racks of spare ribs, which turned out really good, if a bit salty. The experience was enough to help me start learning some of the Bradley’s quirks. So this week, I thought I’d attempt some pulled pork.

Things turned out reasonably well, but there were definitely some bumps in the road.

The Plan

Since I was going to be up on New Year’s Eve anyway, I figured I’d throw the shoulder into the smoker around midnight, and let it go for 12 or 14 or 16 hours — whatever it took. That way I could have a later New Year’s lunch of fresh smoked shoulder.

The Meat

Of course, since I wasn’t going to smoke a bunch of shoulder, I wasn’t going to buy the giant pack at my local wholesale club, and I didn’t have time to get to Fairway Beef either. So I had to take what my local supermarket had on New Year’s Eve, which was bone-in picnic ham. I’ve used this cut of meat before, and while it’s not my preference, when smoked slowly, it works very well. So I took what I could get.

The Prep

Based on the saltiness of my first ribs, I changed my rub a bit, cutting the salt in the the first part and increasing the brown sugar. Unfortunately, because of the timing, I was unable to let the rub sit for at least the twelve hours I like. It only got about eight hours in the refrigerator — but this was a learning experience about smoke and timing, so I was OK with it.

The Error

Around 11:15 PM on New Year’s Eve I plugged in the smoker and let it heat up to 260° F (it was about 20° F outside so I knew the oven would drop when I opened it again). Just after midnight, I stacked fifteen hickory bisquettes in the snoke generator tube and powered it on. The feeder cycled a couple of times moving bisquettes forward, and then just kept going. After a couple of cycles I was greeted with a loud beeping and an “E” on the smoker generator display. Crap. I unplugged everything, then plugged it all back in again. I restarted the smoke generator and got the same problem. It just kept cycling over and over again. What the hell was I going to do at midnight with a picnic ham ready to go?

I quickly went to the Internet and looked up the error. Thankfully, the Bradley Smoker has a huge and hugely helpful following on several message boards, including the official http://forum.bradleysmoker.com/ Bradley forums. Between the Bradley boards and a site run by one of the active members (with some helpful FAQs) I learned that the “E” error is generated when the bisquette feed motor can’t locate itself at startup. (And is different than the “E1″ error which is caused by a broken temperature sensor or a bad connection on the sensor wire). The FAQ on the E error had a helpful picture, and so I found myself with screwdriver in hand, disassembling the smoke generator and taking my ohm meter to the microswitch which signals the travel limit of the feeder arm. I quickly determined that there were no loose connections and that the switch was working. So, figuring that I must have a fried control board, I blew everything clean with compressed air and put it back together again. I gave it one shot and I guess I got lucky — it worked. So my take away is that cleaning the bisquette dust out of the smoke generator is pretty important, because stray parts can jam the feed mechanism.

Anyway, after a 35 minute detour I had the generator assembled again. But my bigger problem was that the smoker box was already down to 45° F. So I was going to be well behind schedule.

The Cook

But I gave it a shot anyway. I loaded the fifteen bisquettes back into the smoker, put the meat on the lower shelf, added my remote thermometer, and fired it up. I set the smoker for four hours and twenty minutes of smoke and the temperature to 220° F. I waited 30 minutes to make sure that the smoke started, set the top vent 1/2 way open, and then went to sleep.

When I woke up about five hours later, the smoker was holding a 210° F temperature, and  the meat had risen to about 130° F. But anyone who has cooked shoulder before knows that the first few hours are the easy part. Somewhere north of 140° F (often in the 160° F range) the internal temperature “stalls.” After climbing steadily for five or six hours, it just stops for five to six more. It’s really disconcerting the first few times it happens because you’re sure that you’re doing something wrong, and many inexperienced cooks take the meat off too early assuming that it won’t get any warmer. But it will — with pork shoulder, patience is truly rewarded.

I let the temperature climb slowly for the next few hours, and it did indeed stall at 165° F. It hit this plateau around 10:30 AM, and then stayed there until well past noon. Then it slowly started creeping up again. By 3 PM it finally crossed 185° F and I started the oven for my cornbread. At just before 4 PM it finally hit 190° F and I pulled it out and let it rest in foil for 30 minutes.

The Results

I’ll put it this way — the results were good enough that after waiting close to 16 hours I didn’t stop to take pictures. I pulled it with two forks (it was tender enough to fall right off the bone), grabbed my cornbread, and dove right in.

As expected, without a full twelve hours to sit with the rub, the overall seasoning was light. But that wasn’t the fault of the smoker. The smoke flavor though, was also light and this surprised me. Most of the information I read said that people were happy with four hours of smoke — I think it needed much more. The next round I will go for at least six hours.

There was also no smoke ring, which is the result of the electric heat versus heat generated by the combustion of either gas or wood. Essentially, the combustion creates various nitrogen oxides (abbreviated collectively as NOx) which react with the myoglobin proteins in meat to form a red layer.This layer is akin to meat cured with nitrite salts. (See http://www.karubecue.com/smoke_ring.html# for a good explanation.) So this is something that I think I will need to get used to:  in an electric smoker — without the combustion of fuel, the “cured” layer that forms right under the bark just won’t be the same, so the texture and taste won’t be as intense as it gets in a real smoker.

Otherwise, this cook turned out well … the meat was tender, there was a light smoke flavor, and again, I didn’t have to watch the damn thing for 16 hours. So I’m still happy …  and after I finish off a few more pounds of pulled pork I’ll be experimenting with longer smoke and maybe some different rub treatments to try and improve the bark.

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2. New Bradley Digital Smoker – A Summary
3. My New Bradley Digital Smoker – A Review
4. Smoked Pork Ribs on My Grill
5. Updated BBQ Rub and Seasoning