Pork butt in the pk100

[twilliams]

TexLaw saw dust is the best in my opinion

[twilliams]

PaPaSmokes I would sure think 4 butts would be fine in the PK. I don’t have the PK but I have the next model up and I had 8 butts in mine but I have a big cook burner as well. Give yourself plenty of time, if you can start them early in the morning say 3 to 4 am so your not pushing yourself late in the evening I would. I bet you will be between a 10-14 hour cook. Hopefully it’s not on a super cold day as well. I personally don’t like the heavy bark so I only smoke 1 full deep 10” pan. You probably have the smaller pan with the PK. To start out I would let them rest out of the fridge for Atleast an hour or so to help bring the meat temp up before putting them in the smoker.

[PaPaSmokes]

twilliams great info, yea i hadn’t planned on making it a reg thing, i just wish they would have thought about pans in there and made it a couple of inches deeper so a full size serving pan would fit. i cook in pans mostly to keep my vault clean as well as catch all the juices to add back in my packaging. i, too, do not like a big bark on my butts or brisket so we wrap after a good color anyway. i like low and slow like the next guy but not all night.

[Spidey]

PaPaSmokes 3 was as many as I wanted to load into the PK-100. I heaped up the wood pan and it had good smoke and color. I am not a fan of a heavy bark and mine were placed in aluminum pans to catch the drippings.

[PaPaSmokes]

Spidey awesome info, thx!

[PaPaSmokes]

twilliams did you buy a specific pan? Is one avail or what do you recommend if I want a larger pan. I was thinking a 10-12” stainless dog food water dish.

[twilliams]

PaPaSmokes for the PK100 the saw dust pan you got with it should be the 7 1/2”. That is the only pan they recommend for your model. The 10” would be too big of diameter for your burner. I am not sure if you could find one that is deeper that would hold more saw dust. I will take measurements of mine when I get home, I might have the same one as you but I thought mine was deeper. Where I bought the smoker they only have two options, a 7 1/2” and a 10” for the H series smokers

[PaPaSmokes]

If I wanna make fresh sausage eat some now and freeze some to sell, and I wanna grind and stuff today then let it dry in the frig over night and then do the drying 130° cycle and other temp spikes to 160° tom then do I need to add cure?
Why would you not just put cure in all your sausage to give you options? I’m taking the maiden voyage today with my first 25lbs split into 2 flavors. Go big or stay on the porch right!!!

[processhead]

PaPaSmokes
If you do low temperature thermal processing like you described, then yes, you should add cure for safety.

Yes you can add cure to all of it, but sausage with cure added will definitely have a different flavor than fresh sausage without cure.

[twilliams]

PaPaSmokes yes absolutely add cure to your meat block that you will be smoking/cooking at a long extended interval. You can add it to fresh product such as fresh bratwurst but not necessary as long as you cook at a typical fast interval until internal temp reaches desired temperatures of 160*, 165* for chicken all for food safety.