Smoke a Shoulder of Easter Lamb on a Charcoal Grill

In short, my religious upbringing was confusing, which is why the Easters of my youth were very basket-centered. My mom still sends me Easter packages, but I haven’t been to church for I don’t know how many years. However, I do appreciate Easter food and, for that matter, Easter food. I just love food, especially when it comes to a big piece of meat.

I am from a family of boors. We ate ham for Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas and I loved it. I never asked my mother to cook other meat, although my sisters may have asked because they don’t like ham for some reason (bad taste).

I didn’t even know lamb was a common Easter meat until I was in my 20s, around the same time I tried my first baby sheep at a churrascaria in Tampa. I love it. Lamb is a meat that does not let you forget for a second that you eat meat. You cannot force lamb to become a sterile little unit. You can’t turn it into a tender or turn it into a dinosaur nugget to make it less intuitive. You can grind it up and compress it into a patty, but even then you will never forget that you are eating an animal. (I think it is good.)

And while I would never say no to jerky pork, I highly recommend smoking a boneless shoulder of lamb for an Easter or Passover dinner. One of the advantages of lamb over ham is that it is suitable for both holidays.

The procedure for smoking lamb shoulder is almost identical to the procedure for smoking pork ham. Both foods are high in intramuscular fat and collagen that take a long time to break down, and both are best for slow and slow cooking. You can also smoke both parts without a “proper” smoker. We are going to focus on a simple charcoal installation using a Weber kettle (or similar grill) equipped with an external digital thermometer. In addition, you will need briquettes, some wood chips, a pallet and a boneless lamb shoulder.

Customize it

Before we get to the meat, let’s talk about your setup. You will need:

• Charcoal grill
• coal chimney
• Lighter cubes (or crumpled newspaper)
• Coal
• Wood shavings (I used apple wood, but feel free to experiment with other woods)
• drip tray
• Double Probe Thermometer

You might think that you don’t need a thermometer, but you are wrong. If you haven’t smoked this meat in a while – in which case this blog is probably not for you – having a thermometer is the only way to know what’s going on inside your grill and inside your meat. As I mentioned earlier , the small scale thermometer that sits on the dome of your grill is extremely inaccurate (especially when placed over hot coals), and it’s impossible to control the temperature if you don’t know the temperature. This $30 model works fine, but the presence of Bluetooth means you don’t have to constantly run out into the yard to check the temperature.

Once you have all your gear, you will need to make a coal snake. Snake is also the configuration I used to smoke my pork hams and turkeys , but just to repeat:

“Snake” is a charcoal laying method where you literally wrap your briquettes around the outside of the grill, then light one end and let the charcoals burn slowly throughout the day. (Yes, you could “just get Slow ‘n’ Sear”, but I think knowing how to do it without that particular attachment is valuable knowledge.) There are a few variations on this theme, but I found it rough briquette 24 A long snake of coals, stacked two high and two wide, with a few individual coals along the top of the snake, was just – and I mean exactly – enough to fully cook my almost eight-pound pork shoulder. I’ll probably add a little more next time – there were no unburned embers left when I opened the grill and the last part of the cooking was done using pure residual heat.

In addition to charcoal, you will also need wood shavings. I used apple wood and placed 3-4 small chips between the coals on top of the snake, with most of the wood at the beginning of the snake, and the distance between the piles of wood was greater towards the end.

Coincidentally, “a rough snake of 24 charcoal briquettes, stacked two high and two wide, with a few individual coals along the top of the snake” is also the ideal amount of charcoal for a 3-4 pound lamb shoulder.

It should look something like this:

I prefer to put my snake in the day before, after I’ve salted the meat and put it in the fridge overnight to marinate (more on that in a moment). When the coal is ready and ready to go, it will cross one thing off your to-do list for the day.

Salt before rubbing (or smearing)

Flavoring lamb is a process that works best when broken down into two steps: salting and everything else. As I mentioned in the pork ham blog , this has to do with the relative size of the flavor molecules:

Salt is a small molecule and it easily penetrates the meat. However, most flavor molecules in a seasoning are much larger and cannot penetrate deep into the meat. (According to AmazingRibs.com , most rub ingredients are only 1/8 inch below the surface.) This is normal. In fact, that’s exactly what you want the rub to do – sit on the surface and create a nice bark with complementary flavors – but that means you have to treat salting and rub as two different flavoring steps .

Start by salting the lamb the night before. If the lamb shoulder is rolled into a neat little roll, unroll it and season both sides of each strip. These two pieces of lamb will be much thinner than a whole pork shoulder, so you won’t have to put in as much effort. You want your meat to be shiny with salt but not completely crusty. The amount of kosher salt you see on the lamb below was just the right amount, but I could have been a little more aggressive. (Though I really like salt.)

After salting, place the meat on a wire rack set inside a rimmed baking sheet and leave overnight or up to 24 hours. Apply rub immediately before smoking.

If, however, you want to add some garlic and herbs, you can chop them up and arrange them on the sides of each strip of lamb, then roll both pieces back into a neat little bag. (I like to brush the meat with a little Dijon mustard to help the vegetable bits stick.)

At first I went along the path of “piercing the lamb with a sharp knife and sticking a whole bunch of cloves into its flesh”, and the result was a very tasty smoked garlic that can be spread, but the garlic did not have a chance to work on itself. in lamb.

You don’t need a ton of herbs or garlic. I used three sprigs of fresh rosemary needles and eight cloves of garlic, just enough to add extra flavor without overcooking the lamb. (I prefer the meat to speak for itself.)

Anticipate the kiosk

The stand is tricky. Sometimes it happens around 150℉, sometimes around 170℉, and sometimes it doesn’t happen at all. The first (nearly three-pound) lamb shoulder I smoked took about seven hours to reach 190℉, and the second, which weighed just under four pounds, took just over 10 hours to reach 183℉.

According to AmazingRibs.com , water is to blame – moisture evaporates during cooking, cooling the meat just like sweat cools our bodies on a hot day – and there are a few tactics you can take to combat stagnation:

It is [a stall] because the moisture evaporating from the surface cools the meat at the same rate as hot air heats it, and the internal temperature stabilizes. You can just wait it out, or you can break through the stall by increasing the temperature to around 300°F or wrapping the meat tightly in foil.

I always fight stagnation by opening the vents a bit to get the temperature up to 300-325℉. (I’ve never wrapped meat tightly in foil because I’ve never felt like messing around with all that stuff.)

Control your temperature

Unlike a gas grill, there are no dials to control the heat coming from the coals. Fire requires oxygen, and the more oxygen you supply to your coals, the hotter they will become. Instead of dials, you have vents below and above the coals, and these vents allow you to control the flow of air through the grill (and therefore the heat).

We’ve discussed vents and airflow before, but just to recap:

Many people have many opinions on exactly where you should install your intake and exhaust dampers, but it doesn’t really matter if you find a setup that keeps your grill’s internal temperature between 225℉ and 250℉.

I like to start with the intake damper (the one at the bottom) fully open, with the exhaust damper (at the top of the lid) about half open, and then close it just a little as the temperature inside the grill drops. 200℉.

You may need to fiddle a little more, but try not to fiddle too much and wait 30 minutes between adjustments. About halfway through cooking, you might be tempted to open the grill and see “how things are going.” Do not do this! You will release a lot of heat and moisture. Remember: if you are searching, you are not cooking.

But don’t get hung up on the target temperature

Most smoked lamb shoulder recipes tell you to cook the lamb until it reaches an internal temperature somewhere in the 190-200℉ range. Only one of the shoulders I cooked fell into that range, and the one that didn’t – the one I shot at 183℉ because it was there for a full 10 hours – was actually the better of the two.

How could this happen? Collagen starts to melt at 160℉ and continues to do so until it reaches 180℉, turning these structural proteins into rich, silky gelatin. This gelatin, together with melted fat, will soak the meat, make it beautiful and juicy.

As long as your lamb spends enough time in the 160-180℉ temperature range, it will be juicy, tender and delicious. The second shoulder of lamb I cooked (the one that only reached 183℉) spent at least two hours more in that range than the first, mostly due to its stall, and it was better for it. You have no control over when and at what temperature your meat will stall (or maybe not at all), but try to keep the temperature as close to 225℉ as possible for as long as possible (and don’t let it go over 250℉). And don’t worry if you can’t get your shoulder above 180℉ – it’ll still be delicious.

Let’s cook a thing

To smoke your own lamb shoulder, you will need:

• 1 boneless lamb shoulder, 3-4 pounds
• Salt
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 3-4 sprigs of rosemary, needles removed from the stem
• 8 garlic cloves
• Rub (if using)

The day before you plan to smoke the shoulder blade, take it out of the fridge, unwrap it and season the lamb with salt on all sides. You want it to sparkle with salt, but you should still be able to see the meat peeking through it. Place the lamb on a wire rack set inside a rimmed baking sheet and return to the refrigerator for 12-24 hours.

You can also grill the night before. Arrange the snake charcoal as shown above. Your snake should be at least 24 briquettes long, stacked two high and two wide, with a few individual coals along the top of the snake. Add wood chips, a few for each pair of briquettes, with most of them at the beginning of the snake and fewer at the second half. Close the grill until the next morning. (Allow at least eight hours to cook, but be prepared to finish somewhere in the 6-10 hour range.)

Remove the lamb from the refrigerator and paint the “inside” of each lamb segment with Dijon mustard. Blend the garlic and rosemary together in a food processor, then press the mixture into the mustard. Place the inside of the lamb on top of the outside, roll it all up and secure with kitchen twine. Apply rubbing if using.

Fill the chimney about 1/3 full with charcoal and light a lighter or newspaper under the coals. Once the coals are mostly covered in ashes, pour them into the beginning of the snake (the side with more wood chips), place a pan in the center of the snake and fill it about halfway with boiling water.

Place the grill rack on the snake and the lamb shoulder on the tray in the center of the grill. Insert one thermometer probe into the thickest part of the lamb and the other probe into the grill’s ambient temperature clamp, next to but not touching the lamb. Close it with the outlet valve opposite the hottest coals, open the inlet damper fully and the outlet damper halfway.

Once your grill reaches 200℉, adjust the outlet dampers so they are slightly open. Allow the temperature to stabilize and adjust further if necessary. If you need your temperature to rise, open the top vents some more; if you need it to fall, cover the bottom vents a bit (since you probably won’t be able to close the top ones again without completely closing them). Monitor the temperature and make small adjustments as needed to keep the temperature between 225℉ and 25o℉.

Smoke until your pork reaches an internal temperature of at least 180℉ (and up to 195℉), turning the lid from time to time so that the exhaust port is on the opposite side of the burning coals. (You won’t be able to see exactly where the coals are burning, so just move it a couple of inches every hour and a half or so.) In terms of temperature, I know some people like to go higher, but none of my shoulders ever broke 200℉ and they were all incredibly tender, juicy and delicious. As long as the meat can be easily pierced with a probe, everything is in order.