Hi all -
I'm a newbie, having owned my WSM 18 for less than a month. Aside from some tinkering around with to see what I could grill with it my first cook was St Louis ribs last weekend and pulled pork this weekend. All advice welcome! My question is about the pulled pork. It just never cooked above 188 and I think I know why but wanted to consult the community as well.
By the way, the family thought it was great and maybe that is the true lesson in cooking (or life???) - just deal with the situations you're faced with and make it work as best you can. In general, I was following the "Renowned Mr. Brown" recipe from thevirtualweberbullet.com.
Let me summarize the details as best I can and let me know if I leave anything unclear:
Used Stubbs natural chunk charcoal
Filled the ring with unlit charcoal
Hickory and apple smoke wood buried in the charcoal
Lit about half a chimney's worth of larger chunks - this went on top of my unlit base.
Full pan of warm water on top of that - was touching the coals actually, had to readjust some charcoal to get it resting on the tabs properly.
Butt went on at 11pm. Cooker was 225.
Top vent open throughout.
After about an hour, temp was up to 250 so I closed the vents some and went to bed.
I checked on it twice in the night, not at set times just whenever I woke up (I do have a log if anyone is interested of the details). Both times it was at 250-260 so I kept closing vents until they were open just a crack.
At 6:30 when I woke up the temp had dropped to 170 so I opened the vents back up and tapped the bowl, that got things going again to 225-250.
When I flipped at about 10 hours, I thought for sure I would be done way early. Meat temp was in the low 180's then. I left the thermo probe in.
From that point on, I spritzed with apple juice about every hour, sometimes 45 minutes, and adjusted vents to keep between 225-250.
This went on for another 3, almost 4 hours. The peak temp was 188 but after that it started dropping. Lid temp still was showing 225-250.
When I checked and the meat temp had dropped to 184 again, I went in with a fork and it seemed pretty tender to me, so I pulled it off. I was worried the ends were getting dry so I put a 4oz mix of apple cider, vinegar and some spice rub in the foil and gave it a post cook soak. It sucked up all the liquid no problem. We let it rest for an hour then dug in. My family raved and overall I was happy with the results.
So here is my theory: the cooker was in full sun during the daylight hours and I was getting a false reading from the built-in lid temp gauge. It was lower than 250 inside the cooker, and so the meat was equalizing the temperature more or less with the actual cooker temp. I need a more shaded location, and to add more chunk charcoal as the temp starts dropping. Oh and maybe I need more accurate cooker temperature gauge, but that's not going to happen anytime soon.
Here's a photo while I'm pulling
Thanks for reading and commenting!
--Aaron
I'm a newbie, having owned my WSM 18 for less than a month. Aside from some tinkering around with to see what I could grill with it my first cook was St Louis ribs last weekend and pulled pork this weekend. All advice welcome! My question is about the pulled pork. It just never cooked above 188 and I think I know why but wanted to consult the community as well.
By the way, the family thought it was great and maybe that is the true lesson in cooking (or life???) - just deal with the situations you're faced with and make it work as best you can. In general, I was following the "Renowned Mr. Brown" recipe from thevirtualweberbullet.com.
Let me summarize the details as best I can and let me know if I leave anything unclear:
Used Stubbs natural chunk charcoal
Filled the ring with unlit charcoal
Hickory and apple smoke wood buried in the charcoal
Lit about half a chimney's worth of larger chunks - this went on top of my unlit base.
Full pan of warm water on top of that - was touching the coals actually, had to readjust some charcoal to get it resting on the tabs properly.
Butt went on at 11pm. Cooker was 225.
Top vent open throughout.
After about an hour, temp was up to 250 so I closed the vents some and went to bed.
I checked on it twice in the night, not at set times just whenever I woke up (I do have a log if anyone is interested of the details). Both times it was at 250-260 so I kept closing vents until they were open just a crack.
At 6:30 when I woke up the temp had dropped to 170 so I opened the vents back up and tapped the bowl, that got things going again to 225-250.
When I flipped at about 10 hours, I thought for sure I would be done way early. Meat temp was in the low 180's then. I left the thermo probe in.
From that point on, I spritzed with apple juice about every hour, sometimes 45 minutes, and adjusted vents to keep between 225-250.
This went on for another 3, almost 4 hours. The peak temp was 188 but after that it started dropping. Lid temp still was showing 225-250.
When I checked and the meat temp had dropped to 184 again, I went in with a fork and it seemed pretty tender to me, so I pulled it off. I was worried the ends were getting dry so I put a 4oz mix of apple cider, vinegar and some spice rub in the foil and gave it a post cook soak. It sucked up all the liquid no problem. We let it rest for an hour then dug in. My family raved and overall I was happy with the results.
So here is my theory: the cooker was in full sun during the daylight hours and I was getting a false reading from the built-in lid temp gauge. It was lower than 250 inside the cooker, and so the meat was equalizing the temperature more or less with the actual cooker temp. I need a more shaded location, and to add more chunk charcoal as the temp starts dropping. Oh and maybe I need more accurate cooker temperature gauge, but that's not going to happen anytime soon.
Here's a photo while I'm pulling
Thanks for reading and commenting!
--Aaron
