First Cook on My RT-1250

DonD

Member
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10
Location
CT
Grill(s) owned
  1. RT-1250
Happy New Year! Thought I would share my first cook on my RT-1250: Pulled pork for our New Year's Eve celebration! This is a continuation of my new owner thread here.

I'm from south central CT and have been making pulled pork for years on charcoal. My first method was straight charcoal. As you can imagine, while the end result was delicious, it was very difficult keeping the temperature at a constant 225 deg F for 12 hours. Ended up pulling it off the smoker about 10PM and finishing in the oven so dinner wasn't too late. Thought to myself 'there must be a better way.' I was already starting to think of a pellet smoker in my future. We have a pellet stove so I was not a newbie to pellets.

My next method was to Sous Vide the shoulder for 18-24 hours which kept perfectly constant temperature of 165 deg F, put it in the fridge for a few days and then the next weekend smoked it over charcoal for about 5 hours. Just as delicious but much more manageable. Not perfect though - still thinking of a pellet smoker....

When I saw the Recteq sale in December I knew it was time to make the move. See the thread above for my new owner experiences (TLDR - it was a very good delivery experience that not even Estes could ruin!)

On to the first cook. Having used Sous Vide prior to the pellet smoker I decided to go ahead and use that method for my first cook despite the fact that the pellet smoker negated the need due to the near perfect ability of the pellet smoker to maintain a constant temperature. I'm am still weighing the pros and cons of using Sous Vide vs straight smoker. I'll list pros and cons later. Feel free to add comments either way.

On to the pictures:

2 pork shoulders, dry brined for 24 hours in fridge and bagged for Sous Vide, and then cooking for 18 - 24 hours at 165 deg F

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2 pork shoulders after Sous Vide for 21.5 hours and then ice bath chilled and put in fridge for a couple hours. Big pro for Sous Vide: captured 6.2 cups of pork broth from the Sous Vide bags that is going to make a dinner of a South Western style pork/corn/bean soup to have with grilled pulled pork and cheese on fresh sour dough bread. Sampling the soup now - delicious!

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2 pork shoulders on the smoker set to 225 deg F. Apple pellets in the smoke tube were excellent!

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After 10 hours on the smoker. Started at 225 deg F. Hit the stall after 6 hours, boosted the temperature to 300 deg F to push past the stall. Never hit set temperature of 203 deg F but seemed done after doing the fork test so pulled it off the grill at 190 deg F. I think I need to improve on this step - it doesn't seem like it should have needed 10 hours on the smoker after Sous Vide for 21.5 hours. Both are low and slow. Maybe a little faster and hotter on the grill would be better. Comments welcome!

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Part 2....

Butts done and ready for our New Year's Eve celebration! Served with homemade Carolina Vinegar BBQ sauce and cole slaw on some rolls (my favorite pulled pork style), store bought Stubbs BBQ sauce and some tortilla shells.

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Looks great, for pork butt no need to SV first just put on Rec Tec at 225 until 200 IT.
I like to SV first and then, warm up on Rec Tec when I do a Packer Brisket.
 
Of course there is no need to SV but I'm looking for benefits of doing SV first. So far benefits of SV first are:
1) timing convenience - SV up to a week earlier, store in the fridge and then have a quicker smoke when you are ready for it - still working on this
2) got 6 cups of really rich stock from the SV bags that would have gone to waste otherwise
3) possibly better results - since SV is lower and slower than smoke it does a better job of breaking down tough tissues with less moisture loss
4) cleanup of the grill was much easier
Not really sure if it is worth it - it's a lot more work, jury is still out but if the results are better then it might be worth it. I'll probably to straight smoker next time as a comparison
 

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