The stall is real

[RichardWhitmill]

Yesterday was the hottest day of the year in Manchester and so I fired up the grill and settled down to eat.... pasta
Had a big stall out on my pork butt. I was determined yesterday to do a couple of things.
Try and dial in temps to 225f to practice for future cooks knowing pork would be more forgiving if that didn't work. On this front pretty happy as it was a few degrees over but pretty rock steady. Pretty much closed down all but one of the grates to get there.
And secondly I wanted to try no wrap as the bark had all fallen off last time. Anyway it took so long in the stall it ended up being ready at like 11pm, hence the pasta! I did give up on the low temp around 7pm and cranked up so I wouldn't be there all night.
Anyway I am relaxed about all this as learned a lot on temp control and will for defs wrap and I am sure all sorts of other factors that led to this. And as you can see from the picture well there's only one thing you can do in that situation!
Looking forward to eating my pulled pork today too!

 

[Timothy F. Lewis]

I don’t wrap, spritz, use the water pan or, even open the WSM, get the temp 250ish and I go to bed or at least take a nap. 225 just seems to prolong the agony. But, that’s my opinion.
I just get it all set up, light the sidewinder method up and walk away, check temp in half an hour adjust as required make a cocktail and just exercise great patience.

 

[Bob Bass]

There's a reason why they're called Pitmasters rather than Cookmasters !
If I might suggest, wait until the bark is set before wrapping.

 

[TimA]

What time did you start?

I’ve encountered some longer than expected stalls myself and pretty much wrap every time. Which means put meat in an aluminum pan and cover. Also spritz as I like the added flavor.

And definitely wait until bark is set. It shouldn’t fall off

 

[RichardWhitmill]

What time did you start?

I’ve encountered some longer than expected stalls myself and pretty much wrap every time. Which means put meat in an aluminum pan and cover. Also spritz as I like the added flavor.

And definitely wait until bark is set. It shouldn’t fall off

2.30pm, took it off at 11pm. Weird as it wasn't a huge piece of meat. Definitely all a good learning though.

Next time gonna run a bit higher and wrap. And yeah I defs wrapped too early time before.

Glad I waited it out and took advice here. Can I let improve the next cook.

And there's a happy ending as we had it last night. it was great and a marked improvement on previous pulled pork cooks.