The Pulled Pork Thread

[All-American]

Thanks for the input everyone. I was just planning on about 1 lb each pre-cooked to begin with - and I think I'll stick with that - erring on more when picking out the shoulders. I'd rather have extra than not have enough. I know there will be more women than men - which should help. But we'll see.

I love the idea of cooking in advance (over the weekend), vacuum sealing, and then reheating in boiling water. Except that I just found out today, and the dinner is this Thursday. So at this point, I think it will just be easiest to throw it all on the grill Wednesday afternoon. I know it's going to take longer than normal, since it will be at least double the amount of meat I've ever cooked at the same time in the past. I'm equal parts excited and nervous for the challenge...

Thanks again!

It need not take double the time. I usually do two butts at a time. The last time I cooked for a ward activity, however, I did six. I managed to squeeze three butts on the grill at once. Then at the four-hour mark (maybe six, honestly), I took them out, foiled them, and put them in the oven, and did the other three on the grill. At four to six hours, I foiled the second batch and left it on the grill until the oven batch was at the right temp. By then I could put the first batch in a cooler and bring the second batch in the oven. All in all, three times as much meat as usual with only a four to six hour difference in time.

[Pelado]

It need not take double the time. I usually do two butts at a time. The last time I cooked for a ward activity, however, I did six. I managed to squeeze three butts on the grill at once. Then at the four-hour mark (maybe six, honestly), I took them out, foiled them, and put them in the oven, and did the other three on the grill. At four to six hours, I foiled the second batch and left it on the grill until the oven batch was at the right temp. By then I could put the first batch in a cooler and bring the second batch in the oven. All in all, three times as much meat as usual with only a four to six hour difference in time.

Nice.

[smokymountainrain]

It need not take double the time. I usually do two butts at a time. The last time I cooked for a ward activity, however, I did six. I managed to squeeze three butts on the grill at once. Then at the four-hour mark (maybe six, honestly), I took them out, foiled them, and put them in the oven, and did the other three on the grill. At four to six hours, I foiled the second batch and left it on the grill until the oven batch was at the right temp. By then I could put the first batch in a cooler and bring the second batch in the oven. All in all, three times as much meat as usual with only a four to six hour difference in time.

that's great AA. i will remember that for the next time i do a big cook.

[Eddie]

It need not take double the time. I usually do two butts at a time. The last time I cooked for a ward activity, however, I did six. I managed to squeeze three butts on the grill at once. Then at the four-hour mark (maybe six, honestly), I took them out, foiled them, and put them in the oven, and did the other three on the grill. At four to six hours, I foiled the second batch and left it on the grill until the oven batch was at the right temp. By then I could put the first batch in a cooler and bring the second batch in the oven. All in all, three times as much meat as usual with only a four to six hour difference in time.

That's great advice. I just learned that the actual numbers are closer to 55 than 70 - so I may get all the meat on the smoker at the same time. But if not, I like the idea of a time on the smoker followed by time in the oven.

[falafel]

Nice.

[Bo Diddley]

Gonna cook a couple of roasts tonight. A friend at work is also cooking a couple of them. Gonna stack up the Dude's recipe to his. I'm pretty confident.

[Eddie]

Apparently my wife has volunteered me to smoke some pulled pork for the school where she works.

During parent teacher conferences, they always have food brought in that night for the teachers and staff who are there. Well - one day last month my wife took some smoked pork for lunch, ended up sharing some with some co-workers, and they all decided it would be a great idea if I cooked some up for one of their PTC meals later this week.

Pulled pork is pretty easy, all things considered. I have no problem doing it. My biggest concern is cooking enough and not running out. So - with that in mind - for those of you who have done large groups before, do you have an "X pounds of pork per person" formula you use? How do you account for weight lost during the cook? (meaning - if I decided I wanted to have 1/2 lb per person, how much "shrinkage" should I expect from the weight listed on the package when I buy?)

I've cooked for my work before - maybe 15 people; as well as for some YM activities - again, maybe 15 people. I'm told there will be 70 teachers and staff, just as a reference point, which is obviously a lot more than anything I've done in the past.

Return & Report...

Turns out that when they actually added up the numbers, we were feeding about half of what was originally thought. 35-40 is infinitely easier than 70.

I ended up grabbing the two largest packages at Costco - as Lebowski says in the lead to this whole thread, they come two to the package with the bone out. I usually sprinkle rub liberally inside the cut, fold the meat back into looking like a roast, and stick a single BBQ skewer through that end to hold it in place while cooking. My current favorite rub is Zero to Hero.

I ended up getting all 4 butts in my smoker - started them off around 3:30pm at 225 with the cooler weather this week. Around 1am I got up for some reason and checked on them. They were all hitting somewhere between 175-185 degrees, so I decided to pull them all off the smoker. Wrapped them in foil, with maybe a quarter cup of apple cider vinegar in each package, then placed them all on a couple of jelly roll sheets in the oven at 200 degrees. Left them there until about 11:30am, wrapped them in towels and put them in a cooler and delivered to my wife for a 3:30pm meal. I started early because I really wanted to make sure these finished cooking on time, and I knew I could hold them for a while when they were done early.

From all reports - they turned out awesome. Combined with my wife's baked beans and some au gratin potatoes and coleslaw from a gal who caters weddings on the side - "foodgasm" is the word some of her co-workers used to describe dinner when I showed up a little later to help pack it up and take the leftovers home. Just enough for lunch today (I thought it tasted great too, but was more worried about any potential critics at my wife's work) and some pork carnitas tonight...

Again - thanks for the input everyone. Not sure I'm ready to do this on a regular basis, but I can handle once a year.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Bravo!

[Bo Diddley]

Gonna cook a couple of roasts tonight. A friend at work is also cooking a couple of them. Gonna stack up the Dude's recipe to his. I'm pretty confident.

Update: I probably should have started these earlier. I started them at 10pm, but had an alarm failure, so instead of foiling them at 2, it was 5:50. That's nearly 8 hours at 225. After foiling the pan, I watched the temperature for an hour, and realized it wasn't getting there fast enough. Cranked the oven to 300, and now after 2 1/2 hours, they're at 195. That'll give them another 2+ hours to hold, and 45 minutes to rest just prior to serving at 12:30.

[Bo Diddley]

I was concerned that cooking the pork at a higher temperature with only 2 1/2 hours to hold would make it less tender. I was also concerned that leaving them uncovered for as long as I did would dry them out. I think some of the meat's juices cooked off, because I usually have more left over. However, the pork turned out just as great as normal, and was a hit. After lunch, all of mine was gone while my buddy still had half of his left over. He shredded his finer, and it was dryer. He likes the idea of adding back some of the rub into the meat to give it more flavor.

[All-American]

The good news is that pork is very forgiving. You can make any number of “mistakes” and the end product still turns out great. Maybe a competition judge would notice but most will not.

During my most recent big cook (6 butts) I accidentally left a group of butts in the oven at 225 a good six hours longer than I intended to (I meant to turn it down before I went to bed but forgot). The butts got up to 203. No harm no foul.

You can ruin a brisket but I’ve yet to come close to spoiling a pork butt.

[Bo Diddley]

I think the take away for me is to start sooner, particularly if I'm doing more than one.

Someone brought several bottles of different flavor Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce. I really liked the Honey Chipotle.

[Bo Diddley]

I smoked another pork butt yesterday, and this thing took forever to cook. I'm used to them cooking 8-10 hours.

4 hours in the smoker on Hi Smoke 220, then finished in the oven, in a pan covered with foil at 225. After 14 hours, I cranked it up to 275. I pulled it out after 19 hours, even though internal was reading only 190.

It pulled fine, and seemed tender and juicy, but there was not as much fat left from pulling, so I think this was a leaner roast. Also, there was only 1/2 cup of juice in my pan. I suppose some could have cooked off, but the pan was covered with foil.

[BigFatMeanie]

Did my first-ever cook today. I felt like such a rookie, reading instructions and recipes and all the advice the Internet has to offer.

Got the boneless double-butt from Costco. 13 pounds total although one was bigger than the other (like maybe 5.5 and 7.5 lbs). I trimmed them and learned lesson #1 which is I need better knives. There is a nice set of German knives sitting under the Christmas tree for Mrs Meanie but I couldn’t go fetch those and spoil Christmas.

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I used the Dudes rub because we had most of the ingredients already. The rub turned out fine but I may have applied a bit too much. Next time I’ll not take the “apply liberally” instruction to such an extreme.
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I put rub on them last night and trussed them up with some butcher string (because they seemed a bit floppy with the bones removed) and stuck them in the fridge overnight

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The plan was to put them on the Traeger at 7am with the grill at 225 the whole way (with apple pellets) and I thought worst case they would be done by 7 pm. Total rookie mistake. The grill held 225 perfectly but the cook took way, way longer and used way more pellets than I expected. I had a separate probe for each butt and the smaller one came up to 185 by about 7pm while the bigger one was still at 165. Another rookie mistake is that I forgot there was a BYU basketball game at 7. So I went to the game and monitored remotely. The WiFi and app worked great! Mrs meanie pulled the smaller one off at 8 when it hit 195 but the big one was still at 170.

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After Mrs Meanie pulled the small one I cranked up the grill to 265 from the game. We ate the smaller one when I got home at 9:30 but the big one didn’t hit 190 until 10:00 pm. The small one was more tender and juicy with a nice smoke ring, although the bark was tough as jerky (but still tasted good). The big one I probably should have let go even longer because it was much tougher, but i was tired and didn’t want to monitor the grill for several more hours.

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The family liked it and said it was great but I think in the world of pulled pork it probably wasn’t very good. Fortunately, even not very good pulled pork still tastes pretty good and I learned a lot on my maiden voyage.

[BigFatMeanie]

Sorry for the sideways pics and the goofy attachment. I posted this from my phone. I’m too lazy/tired to fix it.