Adventures in BBQ

Pulled Pork from Pork Butt

Today we are doing Pulled Pork made from a long, slow smoked Pork Butt (which is not from the back of the pig but from the shoulder for…reasons…)

Rubbed Pork Butt ready for smoking

• Setup: Weber Kettle, with Smokenator. Setup for indirect 2-zone cooking with a Weber water pan on the bottom grate.
• Meat: Bone-in pork butt. This came from Shalhoob Meat Company and the original uncooked and untrimmed weight was about 5.3lb.
• Fuel: Kingsford Blue Bag briquettes with pecan wood chunks.
• Prep:
  1. The previous day I trimmed the fat layer on the top side of the pork butt so it much thinner (about 1/8th inch) and trimmed off any other chunks of fat and dubious looking bits
  2. Washed the pork butt and patted it dry. Dry-brined with kosher salt all over and then covered the foil tray and with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator over night to allow the salt to penetrate.
  3. The dry rub was made up by Mrs Adventures in BBQ according to the recipe below
  4. Rubbed all over with a little bit of water to allow the rub to adhere better and then sprinkled with dry rub, patting to try and persuade it to stick properly.
• Dry rub recipe:

The pork butt as it came packaged and before any trimming of the fat or brining

Dry rub ingredients before combining

Pork butt after trimming of the fat (a little over trimmed in the center) and brinign with kosher salt

Cooking Diary

• (Previous day): 4:00pm: Trimmed pork butt and dry-brined with kosher salt all over. Covered with plastic wrap and into refrigerator.
  

  Graph of pork butt temperatures

• 8:40 am: Lit chimney with 2 Weber cubes and 14 briquettes.
• 9:00 am: transferred lit coals to chimney, filled water pan.
• 9:25 am: Put meat on and a chunk of either peach or pecan (it was left over from a previous cook in the charcoal bin so I’m not sure what exactly it is…). Connected up the Maverick internal probe and inserted it into the meat, being careful to keep it away from the bone.
• 10:35 am: Put another chunk of pecan on.
• 12:10 pm:  Raked coals, added some extra briquettes.
• 2:05 pm: Raked coals, tossed on another wood chunk, added some extra briquettes.
• 3:22 pm: Rain ! In California ! In April ! So not in the plan for today… Fortunately it’s pretty light so with a small increase in the top and bottom dampers, we keep on cooking.
• 4:35 pm: Re-positioned meat probe to be more central.
• 5:15 pm: Added some more briquettes as the original load is almost completely burnt out now.
• 5:55 pm: Hit 203 F internal temperature and the blade bone seems to be pulling loose from the meat so pull it off the pit and allow it to rest for 20 minutes.

Results

Once again we seem to be producing bbq that is very dark looking but without actually being burnt… I’m not sure whether having the vents on the Weber mostly closed for the majority of the time produces “dirty smoke” or whether I just need to wrap in foil 6 hours in or so. This would probably help soften the bark a little as it can get a little chewy in places (this could be because it has just got too clumped and I need better shaking and patting down technique…)

Pork Butt after smoking and before resting and pulling

Verdict: B

This came out good and tasty and plenty moist after the pulling (sorry forgot to get shots after it was pulled, too busy eating…). I felt my control of the pit temperature was pretty good despite the rain so there is definitely progress there. All in all I was pretty satisfied with the result; I think what I need is more sampling of other versions of pulled pork to see what sort of color and consistency those come out looking and tasting like. (Could always do more research online but then you don’t get to eat the research… !)

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