Monday, July 16, 2018

11.82 lbs Pork Butt for Pulled Pork - 22.5" Weber Smokey Mountain






Today's cook in the drizzling rain... 11.82 lbs of pork butt for pulled pork.  (The drizzle only lasted a few minutes, but I kept the smoker under the umbrella the whole cook.)

Cooking on the 22.5" WSM and using hickory for the smoke.  There's water in the pan.  Half of the meat is on the middle grate, the other half is on the top.  I'm monitoring the cook with a ThermoWorks Smoke Thermometer.  I'll run the cook until the meat stalls and then wrap in aluminum pans.  I will finish the cook when the internal temperature reaches 200 degrees.

Currently the pit temp is at 261 degrees.  I am using a Weber water cover pan which is lined with aluminum foil to help the cleanup go faster.
______________________

After 2 hour 45 mins into the cook, I decided to wrap the meat in an aluminum pan and aluminum foil.  A small amount of apple juice was added to the pan.  The meat had been hovering at 159 degrees for a while, so I knew it was stalling.  The pit temp immediately rose to 308 degrees after putting the lid back on the smoker, but I suspect that will drop back down.  A lot of air was let into the cooker when the lid was opened and that just adds more oxygen for the coals to burn hotter.  It should stabilize again soon.
______________________

I was having some problems with my temperature probe going to the meat.  It seemed to be intermittent towards the end of the cook.  I got it to work, but I'm not sure what was causing it to show "no probe" on the remote.  Anyway, I ended up putting a new probe in the lower grate meat and keeping the intermittent probe on the upper grate meat.

Temperatures for both meat seemed similar within 2 degrees.  The lower grate was hitting 199 degrees after 5.75 hours and the upper grate was reading 197 degrees.  I will let the cook go until the upper grate reaches 200 degrees and will report back as to where the middle grate meat ends up at that point.
_____________________

The second batch (the upper grate batch) stayed on for 6.5 hours.  Both did not pull as easily as my best pull.  I think the defective probe has something to do with it.  Going forward, I'll use a new probe.



No comments:

Post a Comment