Happy Juneteenth

 I cooked the brisket, ribs, and pulled pork last night. I had planned on having a few friends over to celebrate Juneteenth but turned lazy, BTW the pulled pork taco I had for lunch was very good.

The "Pit Boss" pellet smoker is a great smoker, easy to use, holds temp with little effort, even the wife likes it because it doesn't smell of smoke for weeks after use. The brisket it produces will be one of the tenderest briskets ever, just one problem it has no taste. The pulled pork and ribs are no problem, they will be covered with sauce but a brisket should stand on its own and I've yet to do a brisket that approaches the taste of one from my wood fired pit.

Pellet smoker; set temp to 180F put brisket on the rack, check every hour or so to make sure nothing has changed. After about eight hours, incrase pit temp to 225F to take the brisket pass the "stall". Once internal temp gets to 200F plus or minus a few you are finished. 

The old pit routine is to check every 15min to adjust wood and fire in fire box and move the meat in and out of the "hot" spots. Twelve to sixteen hour of constant attention. When the brisket is finished it is worth the effort, maybe. I guess the question is; Is it worth 16 hours of constant attention vs. the same time with little effort for a little different brisket. One that you can only get at the best BBQ joints vs. one just like a brisket from a BBQ chain.

Ms. Bubba would vote for the chain but then she ain't a Texan. 

Back in Tucson

 We are in Tucson for the year (I think), This will be our first Summer in the desert in several years and it is a question of MsBubba and Summer Sun and heat. If we last I will be doing an experiment with growing both Auto and Photo plants outdoors, in the back garden. 

It is set up to grow 4 Autos and four Photos. The Autos are Durban Poison & Bruce Banner. The Photos are a local grown Thai Nights (based on Durban Poison genetics) and a Afghan Land Race.

Two things I'm trying to test are: will the Cannabis plants survive the heat and is there too much light pollution at night for the Photo plants to flower. 

Auto flower plants are different and will not always follow the rules of growing photo Cannabis. Most Cannabis literature is about growing Photo Plants. Many times the information and/or process is wrong for Auto plants. Most of the time you have to learn by doing. It can be a slow process.

As an example, Auto plants are on a hard genetic time line. If the plant is stressed it will not grow to full potential. It doesn't take much to stress and slow a Autoflower plant just the stress of transplanting will affect the life cycle of an Auto plant. 

This is a plant that was set aside without care until I noticed it was still alive and making flower at about 5 or 6 weeks. Potted it and it's sister a couple of weeks ago, I doubt it will grow anymore but I expect we will get maybe 20 or so small smoking buds off the two plants.