Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Spartan Smoker]

Set up tomorrow.  Morning will start with a trip to butcher.  My father-in-law coming after lunch....  Set up, burn off, then some bacon.   

Dinner Saturday will be Wings (kids first request).   Then an all night Pork Butt smoke for a late lunch on Sunday.

I can't believe how excited i am.     I feel like i am an 8 year old and it is Christmas Eve! 

Any suggestions for easy sides?  I got the cold box and expect i might use it frequently for sides (beans, breads, veggies, etc).

Pics will come all weekend! 

[Ralphie]

I don’t have a personal recipe to share but I’ve seen good Mac n cheese cooks on this site. There are also good charro beans or baked bean recipes where you can use some of that bacon. Rick Bayless makes fantastic Mexican food and has a great charro bean recipe on his website. Just google Rick Bayless. Recipes are from his tv show.
Can never go wrong with coleslaw. Potato salad maybe. Green beans in the smoker are good too.

[Ralphie]

Smokin’ day for Sparty!  Hope to hear about it.

[Spartan Smoker]

Ok.  Bacon - done.  Over cooked... 1 hour at 350.  Was like Bacon Doritos.  Crunchy and crisp.  But it lasted about 90 seconds.

Second was wings.   Crisp on the outside but a bit inconsistent on the cook  Did the 275 2 hours and 350 30 mins.  Turned out ok but not great (B- to C+ grades).  Maybe i should of let them cook longer at the lower temps as they didn't seem to cook through very well.  almost too crispy on outside and in some cases a little too pink on inside.  I probed at least 12 of them and they were all good but they could of used to cook more..... Hmm.  lessons! 

Put two butts on last night.  1230 am.  8 lbs.  Set at 225.  (weather in Michigan is HORRIBLE).  I know it shouldn't matter.  So, they are on now and... i am having issues with the probes.  THey both say 185 to about 200.  But when i hit them with the Bullseye Probe and another one i have they show closer to 165 to 175.  Any idea why those probes are off so far? 

THey look great.  But have HUGE fear i am going to over cook them because i can't get a consistent internal temp.  Any suggestions?    and again.   TERRIBLE weather here.  Ice storm.  Ice hitting the smoker top.  Ugh!  Wasn't bad yesterday when they said it was going to be so i went forward.  But now wish i would of waited. 

[Bentley]

As I thought, no such thing as bad bacon...check!

Ok.  Bacon - done.  Over cooked... 1 hour at 350.  Was like Bacon Doritos.  Crunchy and crisp.  But it lasted about 90 seconds.

[Spartan Smoker]

Still fighting the temps.  Probes show 195.  I pulled one and the bulls eye and another probe both say 175.  It is so called/icy out there the other probs are also giving me bad reads.  I had to bring one in to get a true reading.  Hated to do it, but did. 

Put some potatoes in the smoker box.  Going to give the butts two more hours and then pull them regardless what the temp says (and moved to 235 on temp).  Probs for the RT700 are both showing 195 but again not reliable. 

Here are a couple of pics from assembly and bacon.   [ Invalid Attachment ]

[Ross77]

I’ve heard the meat probes are about 10 degrees off.

For wings I do 90 min at 225 and then about 30 minutes at 400 to crisp them up. Perfect every time. I’ve never had any that were undercooked. At your time and temps they should be cooked through.

Were they frozen?

[Spartan Smoker]

Thanks for replies all. 

Wings were thawed and room temp.  I will keep trying to work the magic with experience.  GOing to take a lot of notes of mistakes i have made. 

One thing i am sure i am screwing up (lack of confidence in the system) is to much peeking. 

Finished the pork butts.  Cook ended up being about 16 hours (two 8 pounders).  The probes were saying 200 and when i pulled them the bulls eye said 195.  I thought they would be perfect.  But, a little dry and certainly not fall off the bone.

Smoke ring was amazing.  I mean shocking.  it was so red and deep i had to plead with my wife that it wasn't under cooked.  But, it was dry in the middle and didn't pull apart easy at all.  Good flavor.  but just a little dry.  Really need to figure out the probs.  They were reading 190 at noon today and i didnt pull the butts until 4 hours later.  No idea what the real temp was.  When i pulled them they both showed 195 with two diff hand held probes i used (Bulls eye and another).  Each time i opened the lid the rt700 probes went whacky.   Need to figure them out and hope it was the weather, but admit that was disappointing.

On a good end of the story.  I threw six potatoes on the rack when i pulled the butts to rest.  I poked holes in them.  (lots), coated them with olive oil and sea salt.  Then cooked for about 90 mins at 225 and 45 mins at 375.  They got up to right around 300 degrees and were amazing!  The smoke/salt flavor was truly spectacular.  My whole family concluded best taters ever. 

Still figuring it all out.  (no pics of butts because of weather).  Icy rain. 

thanks all. 

[Bentley]

If you are looking for techniques for wing cooking...I got one for you.

Heat pit to 500°, add wings, then turn pit to 350°, and cook till meat is finished, usually about 20 minutes!

[Ross77]

You'll get it figured out.  Too much peeking means it's trying to recover lost heat more often.

Try the probes in a glass of ice water.

[Spartan Smoker]

Cool idea on the wing recipe.  Very interesting. 

Ok Ross.  I will bite.  What do you mean about the glass of ice water?  Do you mean to compare the different probes to see where they hit the mark and then use that as my guide?  Or, something else? 

Also - although i said this was my first amateur question i have many.  Ha ha!   Another question.... is there is best place to put the probe?  I understand the fattest part of the meat, but should the probe elbow be towards the back of the pit versus the lid side?  Does that matter?    Best to put through side or is top down better on a butt?  I moved those suckers all around to get me a good reading.  Just didn't seem to work. 

ALso - dry meat but right temp.  THat means went too long at the 195?  Or did they get up higher and i missed it.  The app for the RT700 needs a lot of work.  The video makes it look great, but not really that great.  I think i might buy a better wi-fi probe system.  I don't think the hole in the side of the smoker is going to call the police if another type probe goes in there.   

[Ross77]

The ice water test is a way to calibrate your probe.  You can also do it with boiling water but that's not going to work with a probe attached to your smoker.

Fill a glass with ice cubes, then top off with cold water. Stir the water and let sit for 3 minutes. Stir again, then insert your thermometer into the glass, making sure not to touch the sides. The temperature should read 32°F.

If the probes are not 32F then you'll have to take the difference into account when using them for cooking. 

I'm sure RecTec will be updating the app.  It's their first version.  Don't be afraid to call them either, they have great customer service.

[sharpstick]

I had a friend cook wings on his smoker once and he kept saying they weren't done, they were pink inside. When I tried one, I laughed at him and said it was the smoke ring. They had been in the smoker for 3 hours at 250... He just needed to work on crisping up the skin. So not sure Spartan, but the pink you seen could have been the smoke ring.
The Pork Butts must have been really lean for them to be dry on the inside. Mine have never come out dry but they always have nice marbling/fat content. I hope it was actually a pork butt, not a pork loin roast.
Anyways, congrats of the new RT 700, mine gets here tmrw and I am making a list of what all I want to try on it.
Cheers,
SS

[Ross77]

I saw on another site that others were having issues with the probes.  Give RecTec a call and I bet they will send you new probes.

[grilltreats]

Has anyone had trouble with downloading the app to a tablet?  I have a Samsung Tab 4 and it is not compatible with the app and am unable to download the app to it.  I do have it on my phone so no biggie, but sure would like it on a bigger screen too.  Old eyes deal.


I also don't see a desktop version anywhere either.  I guess I'm a dated fella, but I like to have it on a even bigger screen where I normally reside while waiting on the cook.