Hot & Fast PP


 

ChadVKealey

TVWBB Pro
I needed to cook some pulled pork for a scout camping trip next weekend and for dinner Sunday. I usually cook butts overnight at around 225-250, but Saturday night they were calling for heavy thunderstorms. Rather than (potentially) setting up in a downpour (it ended up not raining at all), I decided to do them hot & fast on Sunday.

I injected them (in the cryovac) with Chris Lilly's injection on Saturday night and got the WSM prepped with a full load of KBB and three chunks each of hickory and cherry.

Sunday morning, about 6:30 AM, I added a fully lit (compact) chimney to the cooker and let it get up to temp while I opened up & trimmed the butts a bit. I've gotten into the practice of cross-hatch scoring the big sides of pork butts. It gives a little more surface area for bark formation and ensures that the rub sticks a little better, or at least I tell myself that.

Anyway, at 7:00 AM, I got them on and set the PartyQ (I was going to be out most of the day) to 275.


I found that running as it's designed (the other two intake vents closed and the exhaust 100% open), the PartyQ had trouble getting to 275. I propped the lid with a metal skewer, which seemed to take care of the problem.

After about 5 hours, this is how they looked. Temps were about 165-175 in each of them.


I've been wrapping in butcher paper lately, but decided to use foil this time to speed things up a bit. It worked, because in another 3 hours, they were between 205-210 and tender as could be. After a couple hours rest in an open cooler with a heavy towel on top, they literally fell apart when I opened them up. The upside of using the foil is that I ended up with about 2 cups of drippings for later use. The butcher paper absorbs some of those juices and lets some drip away, but preserves the texture better, especially the bark.

Sorry, no finished or plated pics :(
 
Looks really good Chad. Total cook time 8 hours? You saved no less than 4 hours, and probably more. Nicely done
 
Excellent! I used to love to do overnight cooks. But lately, I prefer an early morning start and running at higher temps. I don't feel the results are really different at all.
 
Nice cook. I don't do much L&S anymore almost all my cooks from ribs to PP are high heat now, really can't tell that much difference.
 
Beautiful Butts! No more overnighters for me, either. Need my beauty rest. Can't tell much - if any difference in the product.
 
Well, we're on the same wave length Chad. I did the same cook yesterday and also used Chris Lilly's injection. Man, yours came out fantastic. Great looking cook.
 
Thanks for all the compliments. It just goes to prove that it's really hard to screw up a butt.

The biggest difference I noticed in the meat itself was that it was much more tender, on the verge of being mushy. That's probably more from the foil wrapping than the cooking temp. Also, I may have left them on just a little too long, and didn't vent them when taking off the smoker.

Guess I'll just need to do another HH cook with the butcher paper wrap to confirm. I've got about 450' of it left, so plenty to experiment with, although boston butts have gotten expensive in my parts (I paid $1.99/lb. for these two, up from $1.69 just about a month ago).
 
I've learned to pull my butts at 207F. I did 2 of them yesterday and a rack of baby backs.

I "filter" the juice in the foil through a nylon net then put the container in the freezer while the fat sets up. Then I skim it off the top and what remains is what I call "butt jelly". I bring it to a boil for 5 mins and pour 1/5-2 cups of it over the pulled pork and toss it like a salad. The meat stays moist forever.

I also bag up several pounds (1# bags = 3-4 sandwiches) for the freezer.
 

 

Back
Top