What Should I Smoke First?

What is the best cut of meat to smoke first?

Without hesitation, smoke a pork butt/shoulder using apple wood. There are five reasons to choose pork butt/shoulder as your first cut of meat to smoke:

1. The cut is cheap. I have seen pork butt as cheap as .89 per pound in the local grocery store. When the buy in is that low, you can mess it up and not feel guilty.

2. Its hard to mess it up! This cut is extremely forgiving. If you leave it in the smoker a little too long, its not a problem.

3. The plateau. If you’ve watched the step by step videos on the site, you’ve heard me talk about the plateau. It is very important that you experience it when you know it will happen so it doesn’t worry you too much. It may sound crazy, but I was stressing out the first time I hit the plateau! It is that period of time when the internal temperature of the meat doesn’t change for a long time. Sometimes several hours!

4. It seasons your smoker. When I got my higher end smoker, the instructions suggested that I use this cut (or one like it) to season the smoker. Because it is a fatty piece of meat, it seasons the smoker very well. A seasoned smoker is a good smoker. The meat I smoke is better because of it.

5. While the other reasons are all fine and dandy, this is the most important. Pulled pork is dang good! Below is a video of a 22 hour smoke of a pork butt. For kicks, I decided to video it being cut. You don’t need to watch the whole video to understand how stinking tender this thing was – not to mention how juicy it was. Absolutely delicious! This is why I smoke. To see it in its full glory, watch it in HD.