The Pulled Pork Thread

[Eddie]

Confession. I get the costco two-packs but never trim, skewer, or tie. Sometimes I can set it on the grill just so, and it stays in place. But the extra effort to carefully tuck away the loose ends never seems to yield noticeable results for me.

I only cut off the thickest pieces of fat. Tucking and skewering takes an extra 10 seconds or so - so not much effort. Maybe next run I'll just throw it on and see what happens. Especially if I'm just cooking for family.

[BigPiney]

No Sam's Club near us. Used to be, but it closed.

Ha, I'm lucky we even have stores here. We do have a Smart and Final. Very lucky to have that.

[Pelado]

Sam’s club pork butts FTW.

Same.

No Sam's Club near us. Used to be, but it closed.

[Joe Public]

Sam’s club pork butts FTW.

Same.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Sam’s club pork butts FTW.

[Pelado]

Confession. I get the costco two-packs but never trim, skewer, or tie. Sometimes I can set it on the grill just so, and it stays in place. But the extra effort to carefully tuck away the loose ends never seems to yield noticeable results for me.

Same.

[All-American]

Confession. I get the costco two-packs but never trim, skewer, or tie. Sometimes I can set it on the grill just so, and it stays in place. But the extra effort to carefully tuck away the loose ends never seems to yield noticeable results for me.

[Eddie]

The first couple of times I did pulled pork I watched it super close, once I even did the whole "squirt with apple juice every hour" thing.

What I learned is that it takes time, squirting with juice does nothing but create work and a reason to be there every hour, and that the thing will cook just great all by itself if you let it. Just stay out of the way and monitor the temperature.

So my last few cooks have all started with putting the pork on the pellet grill at night - usually around 10pm or so. If I happen to wake up in the night, sometimes I'll check it. Usually I don't wake up though. I've never had one be done before I'm up in the morning. And if they finish in 12 hours (around 10am) I can foil/towel/cooler them for the next few hours until they're ready to eat - and they just get better while waiting!

I like those Costco double packs. After I trim them, when I'm ready to put them on the grill, I'll put the meat 3D puzzle back together and use a bamboo kebab skewer to hold everything in place while cooking. Been pretty happy with the results doing that.

[The_Tick]

two things that stood out to me, and they've been mentioned somewhat are - 1) if you foil about 4-6 hours in, it will speed up the cook and will be much more predictable and 2) always give yourself plenty of time. it can rest forever - either in the oven at 170 or FTC.

Agreed...and if you foil with some apple juice...you don't have the burnt bark issue.

[smokymountainrain]

I just re-read this entire thread and now conclude that I am a moron. I should have read the therefore my first cook because I can see in hindsight all my mistakes explicitly documented here. If I had simply followed the advice of my BBQ elders here I think I would have had much better results.

I'll give pulled pork another try in a couple of weeks and return and report.

two things that stood out to me, and they've been mentioned somewhat are - 1) if you foil about 4-6 hours in, it will speed up the cook and will be much more predictable and 2) always give yourself plenty of time. it can rest forever - either in the oven at 170 or FTC.

[Pelado]

You didn’t put on too much rub.

I mean, maybe you did, although I don’t know how much is too much. But I’d be stunned if you did. Especially the first time around.

Once you realize you pretty much can never allow too much time for meat cooked low and slow, the world opens up for you. 12 hours is usually enough but you won’t be hurt holding it an extra couple of hours if you need it.

And as you say, pork is forgiving. The worst pork I ever made was still awesome.

I think all but one of my pulled pork cooks have been done in less than 12 hours. That one cook took several hours longer. Not sure what the deal was. I ended up pulling one of the butts at 185 since it was getting pretty late and the kids (and their parents) still needed to eat dinner. I left the other butt at 225 until it finally hit 195 a couple of hours later.

[All-American]

I just re-read this entire thread and now conclude that I am a moron. I should have read the therefore my first cook because I can see in hindsight all my mistakes explicitly documented here. If I had simply followed the advice of my BBQ elders here I think I would have had much better results.

I'll give pulled pork another try in a couple of weeks and return and report.

Yeah, just do what the dude says and you’ll be fine.

[All-American]

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.

You didn’t put on too much rub.

I mean, maybe you did, although I don’t know how much is too much. But I’d be stunned if you did. Especially the first time around.

Once you realize you pretty much can never allow too much time for meat cooked low and slow, the world opens up for you. 12 hours is usually enough but you won’t be hurt holding it an extra couple of hours if you need it.

And as you say, pork is forgiving. The worst pork I ever made was still awesome.

[BigPiney]

The Dude's instructions with the foil work like a charm, and really speed things up. And leaving the skin on is just fine.

Skin on sounds disgusting.

[BigFatMeanie]

I just re-read this entire thread and now conclude that I am a moron. I should have read the therefore my first cook because I can see in hindsight all my mistakes explicitly documented here. If I had simply followed the advice of my BBQ elders here I think I would have had much better results.

I'll give pulled pork another try in a couple of weeks and return and report.