The New Smoker
Well i thought this long weekend was the perfect opportunity to light up my new smoker ( Napoleon Apollo) for a test run. As it turned out it is not as easy as i thought it would be. I felt like i was watching over a sick child ( which i had 2 of this weekend)
Getting Started
I was constantly worried about internal temperatures and making sure there was enough fuel and that it would last through the night. First off i started by rubbing the pork with a special spice rub i created 2 days in advance. Then on Friday afternoon i took the pork out of the fridge and let it come up to room temperature. Next up was prepping the smoker, i lined the bottom coal area in tinfoil and wrapped the water pan in tinfoil as well. I filled the starter chimney with fuel and got it going. While the chimney was heating up i filled the basket with extra fuel and was set to go. Once the coals were hot and glowing i added them to the basket, put the pork on the wire rack with a thermometer and closed up the smoker to get to temperature.
Overnight
I was amazed at how quickly it reached 225 degrees but then magically it just stayed there for several hours. Once the smoker had reached its proper temperature i added a few chances of hard smoking wood to add a little bit smoke flavour to the pork. Now it was just a matter of monitoring the temperature and fuel, except it was 11.30pm and time for bed so with lots of fuel off to bed i went.
The Finished Pork
Well my nervous unconscious woke me up to go check and sure enough the fuel was almost out and the temp. was dropping . At 4.30 in the A.M. i decided not to wake the neighbours with a bonfire of coals and hung on till 7am. The smoker was cooling quite a bit and so was the pork. Once the fuel was fired up again everything went back to normal and 5 hours later the pork was done. I removed the pork wrapped it in tin foil and placed them in a small cooler to rest until dinner. Well man oh man was it amazing, true BBQ pulled pork! Now just need to learn how to manage the fuel better and on to the new smoke. Maybe do up some ribs and whole chicken.





















