Low & Slow Lamb Shoulder
This fall apart lamb shoulder was cooked using my new 47cm Smokey Mountain Cooker from Weber. Since getting the smoker I’ve fallen in love with the cooking process, the recipes are super simple and the prep time is minimal. This was my third cook on the weber and I think I’m finally getting the hang of things.
I have a great little Afghan butcher around the corner, so this de-boned lamb shoulder was cheap and trimmed well. The hardest part was rolling it but that gave me the opportunity to stuff it with some extra garlic and rosemary, which really helped with the flavour.
Setting up the coals is getting easier, after looking into the minion method I’ve found that I don’t need to fidget with the coals at all during the cook. This has helped the flavour of the smoke a lot! I can now taste the flavours of the wood rather than just the charcoal and it’s really lifted my game. I now load about 2/3rds of a bag of briquettes into the coal basket and use almost the rest of the bag in the Rapid Fire Chimney starter to get them glowing red before tipping them in the centre. I hit 220F about an hour and it maintains 240-250 for 4-5 hours without having touch a vent (such a relief!).
I used the warm up time to get my rub together and applied to the lamb. It also gave me a time to get some nice juicy shots of the meat before getting it on the BBQ. Food photography is a passion of mine, and am now trying to shoot all my cooks.
The best piece of advice I have stumbled across yet is to never shift your top vent. This is your exhaust, and you never plug your exhaust! If you need to shift gears and slow things down only ever touch the bottom vents, closing them by 40% will rbring the temp down within 15-20 minutes.
The rub recipe:
- 2Tbs Rosemary (dried, chopped)
- 1Tbs Thyme (dried, chopped)
- 1Tbs Oregano (dried, chopped)
- 1Tsp Marjoram (dried, chopped)
- 1Tbs Garlic Salt1
- Tbs White Sugar
- 1Tbs Coarsely Ground Pepper
The cook:
- Target Temperature for smoke 240F
- Target Temperature for meat 160F
- Meat was placed in a medium sized foil tray with 1cm deep of vegetable stock, 1 coarsely chopped onion, 2 coarsely chopped carrots and 1 peach cut in half (this will make gravy so good angels in heaven will weep)
The Smoke:
- Apple wood, smaller chips applied 3 times in the first hour and the rest was placed through the briquettes to burn throughout the cook
I now have been converted to large chunks and have not touched the little chips, the flavour is far cleaner and far better quality of smoke for longer out of them. The next one of these I do will be using some locally sourced apple wood.
Cook time for boneless lamb shoulder:
- 4-5 hours, inserting the iGrill 2 probes 3 hours in
For me was almost spot on 5 hours . I honestly LOVE the iGrill 2 system, these things are a god send and a must for anyone in the low-and-slow game. Knowing that you can have hit your target heat to have well cooked meat leaves nothing to chance.
Trouble shooting:
Keeping temperature regulated is getting easier, and using the minion method has been a god send, no more running to check things every half hour! I now have more trouble keeping the temp under 240f, it seems to naturally want to sit around 250f around 3 hours into the cook. Closing the bottom vents a little has been working a treat.
