Pork butt on gas grill


 
Status
Not open for further replies.
C

Cy Robinson

R.I.P 3/14/2017
Good morning all,
This is my first attempt at pork butt on anything. My WSM is still in the future and I am cooking on a Coleman gas grill. I'm loosely following the guide lines in "How to Grill by Raichlen. the meat was moved from the freezer to the refrigerator this morning. The plan is to apply the rub on Friday morning and cook on Saturday morning. The rub is a mustard/sesame seed seasoning found in the same book. I plan to use the "North Carolina Pulled Pork" mop sauce and serving sauce recipes on page 109.

Had both propane tanks filled for the 4th weekend so have plenty of fuel. Will use Hickory chips in a smoker pouch for the smoke.

My main concern is the cooking time and the grill temperature. The meat weighs 6.7 lbs untrimmed. hopefully my daughter will pick up an oven thermo on her way home from work so I will have some idea what the heat will be at the lowest setting and indirect cooking. If anybody has any suggestions I would really like any and all advice I can get. It will be appreciated. /infopop/emoticons/icon_confused.gif

Thanks,
 
Cy...

I have done a couple of pork butts on the gasser. Almost impossible to keep the heat at 225?, so if it rises to 275? you will still be OK. It's when you get above 300? that your results will be impacted.

Try propping the lid open just a touch and place a large pan of water in there as well. Put the water pan directly over the 1 burner that is lit. I used 2 loaf pans as my burners run lengthwise from left to right. A large baking pan works as well but the water will burn off much quicker...shallower than a loaf pan.

The good news..at 275? it will take a little less time. Sorry, but it's been so long I have no idea what my times were. I am willing to bet around 1 - 1 1/2hrs./lb. ALWAYS plan on the longer time as it is much easier to hold than to hurry.

As far as smoke....I have never had any luck at getting good quality and quantity of smoke from my Weber gasser. Instead, use some liquid smoke in your sauce..it IS a natural product produced from real wood, so you are cheating just a little bit! LOL

Best of luck and I would love to hear your results!
 
I would agree with Stogie. I've never had any luck generating good smoke out of my Weber gas grill.

-mc
 
Cy...
Wrap a chunk of oak or hickory in heavy duty tinfoil... poke small holes in the foil and lay directly over the gas flame... Have several ready and continue using as each burns out...

It's ready when the bone pulls easily from the butt... Wrap in foil and let stand for about an hour before chopping or pulling ...

A butt can cook hot and still turn out great, even if its charred a little that's OK... Mix the charred outside meat with the inside meat for a wonderful flavor...

When your cooking hot it's like cooking over an open pit... You have to work a little harder but it's worth it... (also helps to have some cold beer handy.. lol)

Let us know how it turns out...

Cheers!!

bugg /infopop/emoticons/icon_razz.gif
 
Thanks to you both,
Plans have changed a tad. Turns out that Saturday, 7-19, is our wedding anniversary, 47 years with my first wife. So we are being taken out for dinner. The butt will go on the grill Sunday morning.

My daughter brought home an oven thermo last night. I fired the grill on one side turned as low as it will go, shut the lid and set the timer for 1 hour. When the timer went off the thermo read 310*. Have read onthis forum that you should put the meat on when your smoker is about 300* and the temp will drop to 225 to 250*. Is this realistic for a gasser or am I playing hope poker?

Will definitely post my results. Thanks again for all your help.
 
I've had mediocre luck smoking ribs on a gas grill (using Raichlen's method).

I've done Pork Butt about a dozen times using Al Carson's recipe (link below). The idea is simple: do the cooking in a 325 oven, then get smoke flavor at the end on a grill. When you take the butt out of the oven, chop into large chunks (so they don't fall into the grill or get too dried out). This has worked so well it got my wife hooked on bbq and enabled the purchase of a WSM. Never underestimate the power of smoked meat.

What the recipe doesn't say (but he did on the show) is that you should soak wood chunks for an hour or two, wrap then in a foil pouch, puncture, and place directly on burner.

foodtv recipe

Good luck, and congratulations on the anniversary.

- Brian
 
Cy..

Here is the problem with trying to get smoke from your gasser.....

Any grill worth its money will have protective devices over the burners..on the Weber, these are called flavorizer bars.

To get close enough to the flame, you need to take these off. With the Weber, you need to take BOTH layers of them off. Now that the flame is exposed, there is no where to set your smoke wood! I have had VERY limited success by taking just the upper layer of flavorizer bars away and using the bottom layers to support the smoke wood.

The other problem is that to get the wood smoking you need to turn the heat to its highest setting. Once it starts smoking, you then need to turn the heat down so much that it quits that smoking. Meanwhile, your grill temps are much too high for REAL BBQ.

Now, if you have a grill that has a built-in smoker box, the above is a moot point.

Your test run sounded pretty good actually. I would place the meat on the grill immediately upon starting it. This will help to control the temps on the way up. The water pan will add another layer of heat control and popping the lid a crack will help further.

Best of luck!
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Cy Robinson:
[qb] Saturday, 7-19, is our wedding anniversary, 47 years with my first wife. [/qb] <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Congratulations, Cy. 47 years is pretty cool.
 
My first suggestion would be to get a remote probe thermometer for the meat. The target temp for pulled pork should be about 190.

Last time I did pulled pork on my gas grill, it was a 7.5 lb shoulder that took 10 hours. Grill temps were mostly at 275 until it got direct sunlight. YMMV.
 
Well here I am, as my mother used to say, "Full as a tick." We just finished our first pulled pork (North Carolina style)dinner. We had the pork, and North Carolina coleslaw. My daughter made a really good potato salad. All these recipes except the potato salad, were from "How to Grill" by Raichlen. Used a coating of mustard followed by a sesame seasoning for the rub. It is very good.

The meat marinated with this mixture for just over 21 hours and went on the grill at 6 A.M.

Set the grill for indirect and the lowest temp possible. put the new Pyrex remote thermo lead thru a potato and placed it directly behind the meat, closed the lid and told myself that is the last I'll see in there for 6 hours. at 6:15 I looked at the thermo an it read 276*. One of you had told me to prop the lid open a little bit and that would help to hold the temp down. So, after a moment of panic, I got an aluminium ice cream scoop from the kitchen and propped the lid open about 1 1/2 inches. The temp dropped to 267* by 7 A.M. This is how it went until 9:35:
0730 - 255*
0800 - 275*
0830 - 249*
0900 - 282*
At 0930 it was 282*. While I was writing the temp in my book it jumped to 291*. At that point I took out the ice cream scoop (ICS) and put in a flat rock. Now the cover was open 2 1/2 inches. At 0935 the thermo alarm went off, the temp had gone over 300*. Put the ICS back in and the temp dropped to 273*.
1000 - 237*
1030 - 244*
1100 - 226*
1130 - 224*
1200 - 199*

At noon took the probe out of potato and, after turning the meat, put it in the meat. Temp read 174*. Mopped the meat for the first time.

1300 - 174*,turned and mopped the meat (T&M)
1400 - 177*, T&M
1500 - 185*, T&M
1520 - closed the lid, grill is now in shade.
1600 - 186*, T&M
1700 - 197* Yay!

Removed the meat from the grill and put it in a pan, foiled it and put it in the oven (unlit) for 20 minutes.

Trying to move the meat from pan to cutting board it fell apart. Used two forks to pull it and it was easy. Meat was moist and very tender but had no smoke flavor. Never could get the wood chips in the pouch to smoke at the lowest heat setting. Put some liquid smoke in the mop sauce but evidently not enough.

Took 11 hours to cook and about 15 minutes to eat. It was good, and the leftovers still are, but, meaning no disrespect to the Carolinians, both north and south, I prefer Kansas City BBQ. The next one I do will have a different rub and mop and serving sauce.

Overall, I was pleased with the outcome and I thank all of you that wrote to me with help and suggestions. Because of you I had an idea of what to expect and what to do when things went another way.

Thanks again, /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

 

Back
Top