Prepping for my First Pulled Pork

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Hi all, just wanted to say that this is a great site and excellent resource for the newbie that I am. Anyway, I’m planning on doing my first pulled pork butt, this weekend. I just have a couple of things that I wanted to clear up before I started.

1. I bought a 8.0 lb pork butt, with the bone in. The butcher told me I should cut the bone out and not trim any of the fat. However, in Chris’s Mr. Brown cook, he left the bone in and trimmed away the fat. Which method will I be better off with.

2. Most of the posts I’ve read say to cook at about 225-250 on the cooking surface, and cook the pork to 185-200 internal temperature for pulled pork. Is there a secret to telling when the pork is done, or just simply watching the Polder till I see 190.

3. I’m planning on about 16 hours of cooking time, so I wanted to put it on around 10:00 pm Friday. I’ve never done an overnight cook before, and was wondering what a reasonable amount of time was to leave the pork alone on the WSM. I was planning on starting the coals with the Mr. Minion’s Method.

Hopefully that’ll be it, can’t wait to try it, there needs to be a couple more Saturday’s in the week for WSM owners. Thanks.
 
Matt
Leave the bone in and you don't need cut any fat off unless there is a large external piece (thick).
You don't need to peek at it for the first half of the cook and only then if you are going to mop or spray.
I would plan on cooking it to 195? internal or higher. The cook will stall as the butt reaches 155 to 170? internal, this is when the real work of tenderizing is being done and it's normal. It's done when you can run a probe thru the butt, it will feel tender, like going thru soft butter.
Have a great weekend.
Jim
 
Hey Matt,
Glad to see your doing the first of many cooks.I hope I can help so here goes:
1. Leave the bone in.Follow Chris' method and you won't go wrong.
2.Watch the polder like you said.The bone will also loosen away from the meat.Another good reason to leave the bone in.It's kinda like a built in pop-up thermometer.
3. If it was me I would figure around 12hrs on the cook.I leave the butt alone until half way through the cook.Then I flip the butt and start spraying with juice.Jim's method is the best.It has never let me down. The only thing I might do if this was my first time cooking on a bullet I would probably do it in the day or stay up with it .Until you learn how the bullet works and you learn how to play with the air vents.
Hope this helps
Willy T.
 
Hi Matt,

I have never done a bone in butt, however if I were, I might leave the bone in and not trim the butt. My reasoning for this is to have a bit of a cushion as far as the moisture goes. After all, you can always trim the fat after it is done. I have also heard that leaving the bone in will help give the meat more flavor. I'm not sure why exactly, but am going on what I have read here on this site. I think that it will add to the cooking time however. Also if you are looking for pulled pork, you can go anywhere from the 195-205 range.

I did my last butt which was a seven pound boneless in about 12 hours using the Minion method, and I did not have to add charcoal once. The key thing that I just picked up from this forum in the past couple of weeks is to start shutting down your temps at 185-190, and to bring them up slowly. I did this last weekend and it was unbelievably easy to control my temps the rest of the way. One final tip is that if you really want long burns, look into the Brinkman water pan modification. This has also helped me a great deal, and you won't have to add water as often!

I'm still pretty new to the whole butt and brisket thing, so, yes, I just watch the polder! It takes a lot of the guess work out of it!

I hope this helps you out some. I'm sure some of the vets here will chime in with some great advice as well. Good luck!

Derek
 
I've done two butts, both Mr. Brown, both with bone in (both turned out great).

Personally, I will never cook a butt without the bone, for the simple reason that the smoked bone adds a killer flavor to a pot of split pea soup a day or two later.... especially if you leave a little meat on it. Doctor up the soup with some croutons, green onion, cheddar cheese, and fresh ground pepper. Add that to a cold Fall evening, a loved one, and a fireplace (if you have it which, darn-it we don't), and 'splain to me how it can get any better.

Matt, I don't know if I answered any of your questions, but I agree with you about what a great site this is for us "newbies". I'm still playing and still depending on my thermometer.

Let us know the outcome!

Kelly
 
Great advice from everyone above, especially the advice to do the cook during the day to watch the WSM do it's thing. Since it is your first pulled pork, I would cut the 8 pounder in half and cook it as two 4 lb butts which would only take 8 - 10 hours. Just be sure to cut it perpendicular to the fat cap so that both pieces have the fat cap.

Start the cooker at 07:00 using Jim's method and butts are ready for a 6 o'clock dinner. If it finishes early, cut the heat down and leave in the cooker till dinner.

I do butts monthly and I never pull the bone and very rarely trim any fat. Just rub it down and put on the grate! Turn after 4 hours and watch the temps. Have fun and let us know how it goes.


SC Que
 
Well sounds like I'll be leaving the bone in for Mr. Brown, and cooking to 195 degrees. I've used my WSM twice before (BRITU ribs and beef jerky), but this will be my first time with the minion method. I'll plan on staying up with it for a couple hours, before leaving it be, although I'm sure I'll be checking on it while I am napping. I'll let you all know how it turns out, thanks for all the help.
 
Well, I must say that my first pulled pork and overnight cook was quite a success. I put it on Friday evening around 11:00 p.m. and and the 8 pounder was done about 3:00 p.m. on Saturday. I cooked to an internal temperature of 194, since my fire was dying and I didn't want to add more charcoal for a few degrees. The pork pulled very easily, no utensils required, you sure do get a load of meat from an 8 lb butt. I do have a couple questions though. The smoke flavor wasn't quite as strong as I normally like it to be, I used 7 small chunks of hickory added at the beginning, should I have used more? I don't know if this would have had anything to do with it, but I started the coals with the Minion method, added the 20 hot coals to a full ring, then added the wood, water pan and meat. I wasn't thinking and didn't bring the cooker up to temperature first, it took about 45 minutes to get to 240ish, would this have mattered. And maybe one last question, my coals started to die down after about 14 hours, so I added more, is it better to heat all the charcoal in the chimney first or just add the briquets to the WSM. Thanks again for all the help. Now the hard part, deciding what to cook next, and waiting till next weekend to do it. /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif
 
Matt
Your cooking time was ok, and I add lit coals, waterpan and meat at the start like you did all the time. If you didn't fill the firering with unlit coals (10 or 11 pounds of Kingsford for example) then adding coals at the 14 hour point would be normal. When you add coals I would add unlit unless there were not enough hot coals in the cooker to lite the added coals.
Smokey flavor comes from the bark, to increase that flavor thru out the pulled pork you need more bark. You can do this by exposing more meat surface to smoke. It sounds like you had enough wood in the cooker but different tastes for different folks, so a littlee more wood maybe what you would prefer.
Jim
 
Thanks Jim, I did have the fire ring filled to the top with unlit coals when I started. When I checked on the WSM at 5am, after taking a snooze, it was 278, becuase the water pan was almost empty. When I refilled it came back down to 240, maybe the hotter temps burned up my coals a bit faster. Thats what I get for sleeping I guess. Thanks for the advise, maybe next time I'll do two smaller butts, so I can have more of the bark.
 
Matt:

I'm by far no pro and have learned a lot from Jim. Here's my $0.02 and hope it helps.

You might want to try butt again with the exact amount of wood in oak and hickory as Chris specifies in his Mr. Brown instructions. It is awesome and has a robust smoke flavor.

I am impatient so I won't cook an 8lb roast. I usually do multiple roasts of between 4-5bls. These are typically done in 10-12 hours, a very simple overnight cook, in time for lunch /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif As added benefit, the smaller roasts have more surface area, which was eluded to above, and hence will have more smoke ring and more of the oh so tasty, Mr. Brown.

Give it a try, its the only way I do butt now.

All the best.
 
Hi Matt...

There has been talk around that you can deeply score those large butts for more bark and smoke penetration.

As has been mentioned, the smoke will only absorb into the meat just so far...so, by making those deep gouges in the butt, you expose more surface area.

I forgot to try that with my last butt, but will the next time.
 
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