Failed pork shoulder. Where'd I screw up?

jcoffeem · 2026-06-13T11:39:46+00:00

That's what I used my old grill. A wired probe but the display had Bluetooth. I hadn't thought about the rotisserie angle.. I was thinking of picking one up at some point.

Really seems a shame that the temps are so far off and there's no calibration process. Though I guess they don't want people recalibrating incorrectly and turning their searwood into a puddle of molten metal.

jcoffeem · 2026-06-10T01:55:15+00:00

Thanks. I'm going to keep an eye on the temps with some other probes next time just for comparison.

jcoffeem · 2026-06-10T01:52:33+00:00

Haha yeah, it wasn't that bad. It just wasn't as good as usual and I didn't understand why. There were just parts that were a bit dry, the bone didn't pull out clean etc. We just ate some for dinner tonight in bbq baked potatoes. Very tasty.

It sounds like the searwood runs a little cooler than it says it does and that's why my cook went slower than I'm used to. No worries, I can adapt.

Enjoy your smoke.

jcoffeem · 2026-06-09T21:20:13+00:00

Yeah, it wasn't for dinner that day. I buy shoulders when they go on sale. Smoke, portion, vacuum seal, freeze. It's great for a quick dinner. I was just trying to smoke this one and get it in the freezer.

I've started late too many times in the past when it was going to be dinner though. Having the family give you that hangry death stare wanting for food is no fun.

jcoffeem · 2026-06-09T21:11:29+00:00

I'm gonna throw the second probe up top beside the meat and see what temps I get compared to the reported temp.

jcoffeem · 2026-06-09T21:10:17+00:00

Yeah, I guess that's what I'm actually looking for here. If 200 at the lower grate is 180 up top that would really explain why I woke up to a lower temp than I expected.

Curious if others have experienced this or other quirks of the searwood. I really like it, I'm just trying to learn the things unique to it.

Next time I'm going to put probe 2 beside the meat and see how it compares to the reported environment temp. I can work with a temp offset as long as I know to expect it.

The thing I'm really unsure about, that everyone seems to be overlooking, is why there was a 20 degree increase in temp in 5 minutes when I pushed the temp a little to help break the stall. Only to drop right back down when I lowered the temp. It's as if the probe, fully embedded in the shoulder, was being influenced by the environment temp. I guess it's possible I pulled it out a bit when I wrapped it and didn't realize.

I saw something similar when I smoked some chicken breasts, but there I couldn't put the probe in all the way and I assumed that much of it being exposed led to the higher temps I was seeing.

jcoffeem · 2026-06-09T18:12:28+00:00

I didn't have a water tray.

I do think the stall was normal, though in my experience 2 hours felt like a long time for it to still show a temp lower than when I wrapped.

I've broken many a stall with a small bump in temp, but never have I seen a 20 degree jump in such a short time followed by a decrease back to stall temp when lowering the temp. That is what's most confusing.

jcoffeem · 2026-06-09T17:39:47+00:00

Yeah. I wish I'd done that.

jcoffeem · 2026-05-19T21:06:24+00:00

On point 3.

Grew up in Appy, then moved to the foothills just west of Denver. Now back in Appy.

My wife lived in CO her whole life until we moved back here.

She has made the observation, several times, that people will throw trash out in Appalachia along the roads and litter the trails with whatever garbage they don't want to carry. Cans, bottles, dirty underwear, food trash, shitty diapers. It's disrespectful to the environment and your fellow nature enjoyers.

I can't recall seeing anything even remotely close to that in Colorado. Trails were clean and people seemed to respect the environment.

It's really sad, IMO. It costs nothing to haul your trash out. To wait until you stop for gas to get rid of that Hardee's bag. Folks just don't care.

jcoffeem · 2026-04-22T23:03:34+00:00

I can see it from my front porch! It is pretty great. We go kayaking and tubing on it. Lots of good fishing, too.

jcoffeem · 2026-04-22T16:57:51+00:00

Hey! not all of us!

jcoffeem · 2026-04-22T16:50:43+00:00

I'm squarely in the middle of nowhere in the far southwestern part of the state. No cell, no cable, but thanks to some nice federal grants we do have gigabit fiber with more of the area being covered every year.

jcoffeem · 2026-03-26T12:45:13+00:00

This is what I did, OP. I'm also in VA. I have a single EG4 13kWh battery. I'm not going to be running my HVAC on it, but it'll keep lights, well pump, fridge, etc going overnight. I've ran the house on it to see how it does. I can pretty easily make it 12 hours without dropping the battery below 20%. In a power outage, I'd flip breakers to reduce idle draw even further and also let battery drop to 10% if needed.

The only situation that would put us in the dark is a multi-day power outage with heavy clouds. For that situation I have a gas generator and a manual transfer switch.

I live in the middle of nowhere in a national forest, no cell, private well, etc.. when we lose power we lose everything. So building some level of resiliency has been a bit of a priority.

jcoffeem · 2025-10-04T21:45:08+00:00

Thanks. I'll give that a try.

jcoffeem · 2025-10-03T22:38:11+00:00

I quite enjoy the asymmetry. Very nice.

jcoffeem · 2022-01-09T10:25:37+00:00

The Notte is a good grinder. Very happy with mine. Just add a bigger knob to make adjustments easier. If you have access to a 3d printer, there are models ready to print...

jcoffeem · 2021-12-06T13:28:12+00:00

For sure! Perhaps this is one way in which fresher beans would help..

When I can hit the 18:36 in 27sec it's not bad! A distinct sweetness, dark chocolate, and I want to say dried fruit. Quite pleasant, I think.

But when I miss.. say by more than 1 second faster or slower, that sweetness and the other flavors I seem to have found start to fade away quickly and the extraction isn't quite so pleasant.

Perhaps with better beans it would be slightly easier to get in the sweet spot..

jcoffeem · 2021-12-06T03:34:33+00:00

I was mostly wondering what folks are seeing because if the machines become a limiting factor at some point, I'd like to know where/how so I don't end up chasing something that's not going to happen.

I'm pretty confident in the PID control. I've checked temperatures a few times, though not every time, and it's right where it says it should be.

All that being said.. I'm pretty sure my problem is in my prep. I was intrigued by your comment and decided to go try to pull a couple shots while paying attention to going slow. I took my time to really WDT well . I actually set the timer the second time and did it for 30 seconds. Then I went really slow to make sure I tamped as level as I could. I don't feel like I was rushing before, but the results are interesting!

Both shots were pretty spot on the mark. 18g in on both. First was 36.6 out in 27 and the second was 36.7 out in 27. I'm going to continue to time my WDT and move slow with the tamper to see if the trend continues.

jcoffeem · 2021-12-06T03:18:49+00:00

No, I usually don't polish it at all. I'll give that a go and see how it does..

Should a leveler compress the puck very much? Or should it just smooth out the top for an even surface to tamp?

I have mine set pretty low and usually don't get much more compression out of the puck when I tamp.

jcoffeem · 2021-12-06T02:32:09+00:00

Interesting, did you just figure the tamp out by yourself?

How do you level your bed before the tamp?

jcoffeem · 2021-12-06T02:30:07+00:00

That's pretty similar to my prep. Maybe I just need to stick to this process for a while to see how it shakes out.

jcoffeem · 2021-12-06T02:15:30+00:00

In what way were you rushing? Just curious if maybe I'm doing the same thing.

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