Today's smoke on the 14.5" Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker... a 9 lb pork butt cut in half. Half on the top grate the other half on the bottom. I'm going for pulled pork.
This time, I put the rub on the meat the night before the cook. I decided to try out McCormick's Grill Mates Pork Rub. The butt was cut in half so that more rub can be on the extra surface area and to help cut the smoke time. Speaking of smoking... I did not use any wood this time, just charcoal. Every hour, I spritzed the meat with apple juice.
I used a welder's blanket to keep the temperature up. The outdoor temperature today was ranging from 18 to 23 degrees. My pit temp had been hanging strong at 245 degrees but as the coals started to burn down, it had dropped to 226 degrees. Stirring up the coals helped bring that temp back up, but after a while, I decided I needed to add some more. Instead of the Kingsford Original, I put in some Kingsford Professional this time which burns a little hotter.
I decided to wrap after 3 hours. I put the meat in two aluminum pans, added some apple juice for moisture and closed them up with aluminum foil. The internal meat temperature was at 151 degrees and not moving, so I guessed this is where it was stalling. After some time, the pit temperature kept dropping. I tried to replenish the charcoal two extra times, but I could not get the pit temp to rise high enough to get the internal temp of the meat to go past 185 degrees. Eventually, the internal temp of the meat started to drop to 175 degrees!
I decided something needed to be done at that point, so I took the two portions out of the smoker and finished it in the oven. I preheated the oven to 325 degrees and put the meat in there. The plan was to get the internal temp to rise to the required 195 degrees which is needed to break down the collagen for pulled pork. It worked!
While the small 14.5" smoker seems fine for some foods even in cold weather, to keep it going at a temperature that is needed to bring the internal temp of pulled pork to 195 degrees, a lot of charcoal is required to sustain a long amount of time. The smaller charcoal ring on this smoker just filled up with ash too quickly after multiple replenishments. I don't see a problem using the small smoker for doing ribs or chicken which doesn't require a very long cook time, but not for pulled pork in the winter! It can't sustain that long of time without lots of charcoal, and that can't fit in the coal ring! It's probably fine to do pulled pork in the 14.5" smoker in nice weather, but I don't think it cuts it for long time cooks in cold weather.
The total cook time for the smoker and the oven combined was at bit over 7 hours.
Regardless, the end result turned out great! Very easy to pull the pork after finishing in the oven. I cooked it until the internal temperature reached 198 degrees. Plenty moist, the bone came out totally clean and the taste was great too! The McCormick rub seemed less salty to me and not spicy. Very mild actually, but that's fine because those who might want to put some BBQ sauce on the pork would get that flavor more and not worry about saltiness. Overall, I'm happy with this cook!
FYI: The images on this post were taken with the current entry-level Nikon DSLR - the Nikon D3400 and the18-55mm f3.5 - 5.6 kit lens. Who says cameras under $550 can't take a great photo?! (I got this one for only $395.95 during the holiday sales!) While I have taken most of the photos here on this food blog with an iPhone 6s+ due to ease of use, the richness of colors and clarity even with this inexpensive DSLR camera is far better. I typically shoot my critical photos with a Nikon D4 and a Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 lens but it's hard to beat this D3400 combo for its image quality to cost ratio! All images too can be custom white balanced for color accuracy and consistency... something I can't do with the iPhone!
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