Screw-Ups Revisited - Smoked Boston Baked Beans

Adapted from: http://amazingribs.com/recipes/beans/boston_baked_beans.html

I used 1/2# of dried pinto beans, soaked overnight. Divided into a smaller vegetarian batch using water (didn’t have any vegetable broth on hand) and a larger batch using pancetta and chicken stock (1c super gelatinous homemade stock and 1c store-bought low sodium broth).

The first time I tried making these back in July, I put them in the smoker with a pork butt at 225F. The beans were in the smoker around 9 hours. The pork came out great, but the beans were woefully undercooked.

This time around, I had chicken in the smoker at 235F. I left the beans in for around 5.5 hours (the chicken came out a few hours sooner) before moving them into the oven at 325F uncovered for a couple more hours to get them finished. They came out significantly better this time (edible). Lesson learned - don’t be afraid to adapt cooking methods.

The vegetarian variant did end up a bit flat - because of the small amount, I kept having to add water as they cooked. A good vegetable stock in a larger dish would have helped. Plus maybe a splash of BBQ sauce or vegetarian worcestershire sauce to make up for the lack of drippings (the vegetarian batch stayed on the top shelf of the smoker while the other was on the shelf directly under the chicken to catch any rub/drippings as it cooked).