i have a small pork shoulder and ham( about 6-8lbs each)that i was thinking of smoking for the 4th of July. it is from a small wild hog i shot a few months ago. one caveat is my electric smoker will only heat to 225 degrees on its own. second caveat is that it is supposed to be about 110 degrees here and if i put the smoker out in the sun, t will probably get hotter. any suggestions/recipes. thanks in advance.

I've recently done a couple and they turned out very well. I used a dry rub and cooked for 3 hrs or so on a Traeger pellet grill at 225 for 3 hrs, then put them in a pan w/ maybe one cup of apple juice/cider and covered tight with aluminum foil. Then finished cooking @ 225 in the oven as otherwise they would get a bit too dry.

If you want to keep it simple, just rub the outside with a heavy mixture of salt and cracked black peppercorns (mix some cayenne in if you like a bit more bite, it really takes a lot to make it "hot", probably because of heat and smoke loss), wrap in foil and put it in your cooker for a couple of hours, at this stage smoking really won't make much difference because of the foil wrap. Because the meat sizes are relatively small, I think that 2- 2 1/2 hours will be enough. Then start the smoke, open the foil wide while still holding fluids and let the smoke work for 2 or 3 hours. When the meat is "wiggly" to the touch, then it is done. Obviously be sure it is cooked past medium rare. You will get more real Q results if you take the foil completely off, but you will get moister and probably a better eating result if you just open it up and leave the juices in the foil.

There are much more complicated rubs, but this will produce a good result. You can put vegetables in the foil as well, put onions on top of meat, garlic, etc. etc. to taste. It's all easy and the results will be excellent unless you grossly overcook/dry the pork.

thanks a lot, guys. i was afraid because of the relatively low heat, it might take a lot longer, but then agin, they are small pieces!

How did it come out?

GREAT!. i basically used Taz's recipe with a few minor changes. i decided if i was going to fool with setting everything up, i might as well do both a ham and a shoulder. ate the shoulder over several days, pulled the ham and froze it in zip locks. it was tender enough to pull easily and had a great smokey flavor.