A Study in Heat, Time and Smoke: Pulled Pork
August 27, 2007
AKA: You have to love my butt. Pork Butt that is.
Your going to have to forgive me on this one. If you are interested in smoking meats, then read on, if you aren’t, then just ignore this post. I was just so proud of how well this dish turned out that I had to post about it.
You see, I’m a big fan of grilling. There just isn’t much that compares to some exquisitely grilled food, seared to perfection. I’m not just talking about meats, I love to grill vegetables, fruits, and breads too.
On Saturday, my wife asked me to smoke a pork butt, also called a boston butt or pork shoulder roast. To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t really in the mood, but she had already prepped it, and it really isn’t that much work.
The night before she had put a dry rub on the meat, and placed it in the fridge overnight. Technically, since the rub was left on the meat for so long, it’s considered “curing” the meat.
So Saturday about 7PM I started my smoker up, tossed some chunks of hickory on it, and put the butt on. Later on that night, around 10 or so, I threw some more hickory chunks on the fire, and went to bed.
In the morning, about 7:00 AM, I fired the smoker back up, it had gone out during the night, and put some more hickory on it, refilled the drip pan with water, and started smoking again.
The smoker sat right around 250 degrees while it was lit, although during the night it had gone much lower, down to about 100. I took the meat off at 2PM, so all together it smoked for about 19 hours.
Now, you would think that being cooked for this long would make the meat really dry, but a port butt has so much fat in it, that when it melts the meat is just continually basted. There is this pad of fat on one side of the meat, and I usually place that side pointing up, so that it runs over the meat as it melts.
If you would like to see a full sized version of these pictures, just click on them. On the first picture, you can see the bone from the pork butt, which I pulled out with my fingers, sitting next to the meat. The second picture highlights the juiciness of the meat. Sections of meat that are red are not raw, they are part of the “Smoke Ring”, which indicates how far into the meat the smoke penetrated.
A lot of people suggest “mopping” the meat periodically with a “mop sauce”, and as long I’m not feeling too lazy, I’ll do it. I didn’t this time though. A mop sauce is basically just a watery sauce that keeps the meat moist. In my experience, the mop sauce is usually vinegar based.
My only regret is that I didn’t make the mustard barbecue sauce that normally goes with this. I ended up buying some, and I just wasn’t really happy with it.
Steven Raichlen got me started smoking meats, thanks to his book, “How to Grill: The Complete Illustrated Book of Barbecue Techniques
Also on Port 16:
Posted in Grilling, smoking meats, barbecue
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August 27th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
Mike, So I’ve used a small little smoker for years. In fact it was my folks smoker when I was growing-up. A couple of months ago I added a propane grill and mostly now use it for grilling. Fire it up, let it get hot for a couple of minutes and then throw the meat on. It’s not grilling in the “real” sense, but gets the job done. So, being from Texas and loving bar-b-q, I know I’m missing out on smoking by using propane, but is it worth the time to fire up a smoker? Do you use both or are you more committed to the smoker? The book sounds really cool by the way.
August 27th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
You can still smoke food on a propane grill, all you need is one of those wood chip boxes, or you can put the soaked wood chips in a piece of tin foil and poke holes in it. If not smoking the meat, you can at least indirect grill. I love cooking chicken that way. Do you by any chance make Salsa Verde?
Although I can absolutely understand why people use propane, I only use charcoal. It does cut down on how often I grill, but I still prefer it.
I use my grill much more often then the smoker, the smoker is only for really long cooking, although sometimes I’ll take the drip pan out and use it to do some modified grilling. The meat is so far from the coals that way that it is excellent for really baking the barbecue sauce on chicken.
I used to have one of those short Weber smokers, and I never much liked it. You could only get fresh coals into it through the door. The smoker I have is a vertical smoker, but you can pull the body off, which keeps the meat, drip pan, and lid together. The bottom contains the coals and ash grate. It makes life a lot easier. The whole thing stands about 5 feet tall.
I would love to get a horizontal “barrel” smoker, but I just don’t think I could keep it hot, we don’t have much wood that you can cook with here in Colorado. I have given thought to buying a propane smoker, or even electric. It might be worth it for the heat control.
That book really is terrific, I wish I had found it years earlier.
August 27th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
Wow, 5 feet tall. Now you’ve got me really curious. I would love to see that one. My neighbor has a mongo smoker. I’m very jealous. The book does sound very good, I may have to get a copy. Hmmm… birthday is next month maybe…
August 27th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
It has these tall legs on it, which makes it really nice because you don’t have to crouch down or bend over. It also has 3 racks for meat. I’ve smoked up to 6 Boston Butts on it (for a company picnic). I really love that smoker. I can light it, and it will sit at 225 - 250 degrees for about 6 - 8 hours. Very rarely do I have to worry much about the heat.
I had to look it up, it is the “MasterBuilt Triple Crown Charcoal Smoker”, buy.com has a picture here, but they don’t list it as available anymore. I bought mine at Walmart for about $80.
That would be a great present, but I bet you could work a smoker into it too. Just show the wife the pics in this post, and tell her “If a Yankee can do this, imagine what I can do!”
August 27th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Wow, that is an impressive piece of equipment. I’ll have to leave some hints around the house. Maybe it’s time to stop by the bbq grill store in town. Yes, we have a swank outlet dedicated to only bbq grills.