Thanks guys, Decided to go with two decent sized bone-in pork butts for my first cook. But, since I only have one day off a week (very often NO DAYS), I decided to go High-Heat so I could wrap it up in 6 or 7 hours and not loose sleep. I used the info found here
http://virtualweberbullet.com/pork4.html for guidance. I used "Chris Lilly's Six-Time World Championship Pork Shoulder Injection" and Rub.
I prepped my meat at about 7:30 am and went to start the fire at 8:00. I used Apple and Oak as the smoke wood. Using the Minion method, I dumped a full chimney over the unlit. I then learned BBQ Lesson #1,,,, thou shalt not BBQ barefooted,,, as my wife and I BOTH stepped on burning shards of briquettes on the patio and made a beeline for the pool steps!
Put the butts on at 8:30ish, one on each rack all vents at 100% open. I had a probe thermoter inserted in the Silicon gasket thingie to measure temps in the middle section. Early on, I had trouble getting the temp up over 300* so I turned the door upside down and found a paint roller handle was the right height to keep it propped open a crack. Temp on the digital went quickly to 380*, so I closed the door and left all vents at 100% open. The temp went down again to the 300* mark and I adjusted the door again until it read 360*, so I closed the door once more. It was now about an hour into the cook and the temps started to stabilize with a little experimentation of opening and closing the vents. After two hours, I really only needed to check temps every 30 minutes or so (even though my granddaughter parked herself on a cooler to read the digital display every thirty seconds) as it was comfortably parked between 325 & 350*.
At three hours, the internal temp was about 140* in the top butt and 150* in the lower. I closed the lid and gave it about another half hour before I checked again. At 3 1/2 hours, they were 160 internal, so I wrapped them tightly in foil after adding a little of the injection liquid and rub to the foil. They went back into the WSM, this time both on the top shelf and I inserted the probe into one to monitor their progress. There they sat for another two hours or so with me having nothing to adjust on the vents because it stayed in the 330* range. My patio smelled AWESOME! Around 2:00 PM, a little over 5 1/2 hours in, they were reading 190* internal, so I checked for tenderness with my instant read. One was more tender than the other, so I pulled to good one and gave the second another 30-45 minutes when it was ready. Kept them wrapped in foil, wrapped in a towel and went about some errands until around 4:00 PM.
At 4:00, I started pulling both butts, MAN what a lot of meat! (especially when you consider that the only ones in the house are my wife, my 10 year-old granddaughter and me, and my wife doesn't eat meat!). But as a learning experiment, I wanted to go big.
These butts turned out soooooo tender and tasty! I added a jarred sauce to mine (Cattleman's Carolina style), and piled two Martin Potato rolls high and added some tobacco onions from the club. served with a side of cole slaw and mac & cheese.
Awesome meal!
My oldest son came by for a to-go container, my wife took some to her office, I brought some here for the chef's to try and to cry-o-vac the remainer into manageable freezer packets and we'll be in hog heaven for a while.
Thanks for reading.
