From member, Steve in KC on another forum:
Alright, since I'm sure most of you can tell where my loyalty is regarding bbq style and having formerly led an award winning competition bbq team (KCBS not Memphis in May), I thought I'd do a pulled pork tutorial.
Some of you, especially from the Carolina's may have already turned up your nose, but I'm not touting that this is a authentic SC recipe. It's what I've done for over a thousand pounds of pork butts (boston butt). It is a tried and true recipe that I used when I catered and has never failed to please a crowd or just my family sitting around the dinner table.
I've been asked by my church to cook up enough pulled pork for 80 people for a party tomorrow evening. The first question you may ask is "how do you know how much meat to purchase?" Easy.
Typical bun serving size is 1/4 of a pound. Pork butt generally loses HALF of it's weight due to bone, fat and water being absent from the final product. So it's simple math...
Number of guests * .025 = total cooked weight
total cooked weight * .30 = buffer for second helpings and big eaters
buffer + total cooked weight = total amount of COOKED meat you need
total amount of COOKED meat * 2 = total amount of RAW meat you need to purchase
Got it? Good...moving on...
Seasoning...pick a rub you like and use it. I'm not using this thread as a means to communicate ALL things BBQ, just a fairly simple 'how to'. I'm using 'Tones Rib Rub' from Sams Club.
What else are you going to need...FUEL!
I prefer Kingsford Charcoal briquettes for a LONG slow cook. Yes, they have binder in them. No, they're not all natural...neither is that McDonald's hamburger you had for lunch...if you have an affinity for the organic way of life, use lump charcoal, HOWEVER, I hope you enjoy stoking your firebox 2x as much, not to mention the added cost (lump is about 2x the cost of briquettes).
Meat, seasoning, fuel...FLAVOR. Yes, you need some wood to produce the smoke. Soaking wood does NOTHING, zip, zilch, nada...period. All it does is produce STEAM (think burning green wood). While it's not been 100% proven, I lean toward the theory that meat does NOT absorb any more smoke past 140F internal temperature. The thought is that on most cuts, the exterior of the muscle has shrunk to a point that it no longer can absorb SMOKE at this temperature. So A) you don't have to keep adding wood to your charcoal after this point and you can *gasp* cheat. Which I'm going to show you how.
Oh the purists are shaking now. Keep in mind, again, I've done this on over a thousand pounds of pork butts and I'm after a consistent product that I don't have to baby all night long. A 'set it and forget it' approach if you will. I'll save my nitpickiness for fermenting.
Next post will be prepping the smoker, prepping the meat, adding wood to the fire, adding meat to the smoker...and walking away.
EDIT...The cheat I mention above is means to get to a finished product sooner and aids in holding temperatures while transporting if you don't have cambro's for catering. I've done this *cheat* and those who are none the wiser can't tell (it has placed 13th out of 350 teams at the American Royal BBQ Cookoff).
I use a Weber Smokey Mountain bullet type smoker. This unit runs about $200 USD nowadays. When I purchased mine (did have two at once) they were $135 about 6 years ago.
This is NOT a cheapo brinkman r2d2 smoker for $39 at walmart. The two are mutually exclusive and CANNOT be considered equal....if you've got one of those brinkman units and want to do this recipe...don't.
ahem...back to the smoker prep.
The ring you see in the following picture contains airholes that are drilled all the way around. I fill this 3/4 the way full with UNLIT briquettes. I then fire up a full chimney load of briquettes and when THOSE are ashed over , I pour the HOT ones ON TOP of the UNLIT ones.
Why? Because this helps maintain a consistent temperature throughout the burn. This method will get us approximately 12 continuous hours with NO additional charcoal added .
The smoker also comes with a waterpan. The water pan is there for TWO reasons and TWO reasons only. 1) If it weren't there, you'd be GRILLING instead of doing indirect cooking 2) to act as a stab at temperature control - water boils at 212F at sea level. The thought is if the water is absorbing the bulk of the heat energy, it will help retain the overall heat energy overall. In the summer, I actually run my water pan EMPTY except I line it with foil first to prevent grease from baking on. Oh, and the steam...it does NOT moisturize meat. Collagen does that. If you've no idea how that happens, watch Good Eats when he does a show on meat.
Since it's a balmy 8F outside, I'm actually going to add BOILING water to the waterpan so that I'm not robbing my fuel of heat energy just to get the water up to 212F. Why is this important? I want my fuel to last ALL NIGHT so I don't have to get up but once to perform the cheat. If I did this with less of a load or loaded the fuel the otherway around, I'd have to come out at about the 8 hour mark to reload.
Geepers, it's dangerous to leave a fire unattended, at night especially, on your wooden deck! *Gasp* Trust me, it's ok. Remember when I said to NOT use that Brinkman unit like this? Here's why...the old models had a HOLE drilled in the bottom of the firepan to allow O2 in for the fire. Some numskulls would set these on their wood decks, hot coals fall through and POOF...house fire. The WSM design elimiates that possibility by the fact that all coals fall through the grate and into the enamel bowl at the bottom of the smoker .
At last, the fuel is loaded, hot ones on top, water pan in place, lid on and the cooker is coming up to about 350F. "Gee that ain't low and slow like it should be". Of course. That's because I'm letting it get HOT before I put about 30 lbs of COOL meat into it, thus robbing A LOT of the precious heat energy we've worked so hard to keep control of.
no one knows why they are called a boston butt. If anyone tells you they know why, they're a liar and never trust them with your children.
I'm about to release to the world (muhahahaha <--evil laugh) step ONE of *THE CHEAT*. You can do step 2 without step 1, but it really won't do anything for you. I tried it once and have the black eye to prove it.
This is a twin pack of butts (I like BIG butts) so open up the package, rinse them in the sink, and place onto a work surface you don't mind getting soiled with pork juices and rub that WILL stain if not wiped up.
Step 1...scoring.
Take a REALLY sharp knife and make a scoring incision about 1" into the meat across the grain with the cuts about 1 1/2" apart or so. Just eyeball it...don't get out the tape measure...
Flip it over and do the other side...
NOW...you have a KOOSH ball of meat. You're doing this for two reasons 1) when you apply the seasoning (next step) you can get it down into the other 99% of the meat, not just on top. 2) This aides in the cooking time because you've opened up the cut now so that heat can penetrate deeper and faster (get your minds out of the gutter).
Seasoning...
Folks, they call it rub because that's what you're supposed to do with it. You need to be GENEROUS when applying this stuff. I'm cooking up 60ish lbs of meat tonight and I've used around 2lbs of rub. Apply it liberally and RUB IT IN. Remember those cuts you just made? That's right, sprinkle it in there and use your fingers to get the seasoning down into the meat. Flip it over and do it again on the other cut side. Then, make sure all the SIDES are seasoned too.
OK, well, good thing I'm cooking 60ish lbs here or I'd be in trouble with you all beause I forgot to take pics of the first load overnight. I got the first load of meat on (around 30 lbs / 4 butts) on at about 6:30pm. If you're watching the clock, I'm on hour 14 now and I've already the SECOND batch of butts on the smoker...where did the first batch go? Stay tuned...
Here are the rubbed butts in the previous picture above after they've been in the smoke for about 8 hours.
You can see that there are two on the top grate and two hiding below on the bottom grate, just above the water pan. Look at the cuts and smoke penetration. Had we not done this, the smoke would only penetrate about 1/4 to 1/2" of the meat.
Geez...these look burnt! To the contrary...that my friends, is BARK! THE most deliciouso part of Q. When we 'pull' or shred this pork, those bits get mixed into the mass as little flavor bombs. The darkness is a combination of sugar carmelization from the rub and the smoke...trust me...it's not burnt.
The internal temp is around 140F, but for step 2 of the cheat, we must wait until they're about 150-160F.
So the lid goes back on and we walk away for a couple of hours.
More info about the cheat...and collagen...
Pork butts, shoulders, beef briskets all hit what is called in the biz as 'the plateau' between an internal temp of around 160F and 180F. This plateau can last for HOURS. I've had a butt once NOT cooked with the cheat method that hung around in this internal temp range for SIX hours and it drove me nuts. During this temp range is when the collagen begins to break down allowing the meat to pull from the bone and away from the individual muscle fibers themselves. We want this, but we don't want to wait until the pigs come home. After the plateau if busted, the internal temp will begin to rise again, and with some haste. Once you reach 185F you could take the butt off of the smoker and slice it for sandwiches as the meat is absolutely perfectly done and edible at that temp. However, if you go to 195 and beyond...a whole other world awaits...PULLED PORK. You see at this temp, the collagen has COMPLETELY broken down and the only reason the individual muscle fibers are still clinging to one another is simple...gravity. When we're ready to shred, these butts will go from a solid, bone in hunk of meat into a pile of lip smacking, boneless, pulled Q in less than 60 seconds with NO chopping involved.
How do we bust through this plateau? Where did the first batch of butts go?
The initial smoker temp was 350F. After 30lbs of butt is added (30lbs of cool, not fresh from the fridge cold) the temp drops significantly due to ambient temperature and a lot of energy going out through the lid when it is removed. Once I put the butts on, it dropped to around 200 and within 30 minutes had climbed back up into the 260 range.
When I do this method, I run my smoker hotter than normal. Sometimes up to 280-290. Why? Because this allows a good crust to set up on the outside by carmelizing the rub. But I don't run it this hot for the whole cook...you'll see why in my next post.
alright...we're in the home stretch...
now that all of the butts in this load have reached the internal temp range of 150-160F, they come OUT of the cooker.
Yes, that's right...STEP 2 of the cheat is about to be unveiled (muhahahaha <<-- evil laugh again).
You'll need a few tools for this step of the cheat.
1) A fresh roll of plastic wrap (good ol' cling wrap, not the new fancy stuff that sticks to everything). If you've a monster roll from sams or costco you've not yet used up, that will work too.
2) HEAVY DUTY foil that is at least 18" wide. I've seen and used the ultra heavy duty stuff which closely resembles 10ga. sheet metal...you don't need it. Not to mention the fact that it's expensive!!
Now bear with me here...I know some of you are already scoffing...
You'll want to pull out enough of the plastic wrap so that you have a good 3' length that is 4 layers thick. I just pull out 6', double it over and repeat.
I then lay one of the butts on here. The reason for the thickness is that these suckers are HOT and will melt through 3 layers of the wrap. 4 layers gives enough thickness so that you can do the next step.
Roll up the butt and turn end over end 3 or 4 times until you have a nice, tightly sealed package.
The next step is to tear off 3' of foil and place the plastic wrapped butt on top.
Roll up the butt in the foil, being careful to fold the ends up towards the flap. This is important!
Tear off another hunk and repeat.
Now you have the world's largest Chipotle burrito.
Do the same for all fo the butts you're cooking.
Once you're done with this step, they go BACK in the cooker, or oven at 225-250F until they reach an internal temp of at least 195, but I find that 210F makes a world of difference when it comes time to shredding or 'pulling' the meat. No choppy chop here. That would be a party foul.
Ok, so now the all important "WHY". The plastic acts as vapor barrier and seals in the juices, especially the fat that hasn't been rendered yet. This is important becase it will remain in this package until it's time to serve, thus making sure you have a moist product . The foil is obviously and insulator. It helps the meat retain it's temperature, but it also protects the plastic. While these layers of plastic will meld into each other, they will NOT melt onto the food. Now, I'm sure there are some bio chemists out there yelling and screaming at this point about micro hydrocarbonic nucleanic flux capacitor emissions coming from the melding plastic that would go into your food. But I am here to tell you, NO ONE I've ever made this for has ever gotten sick or had an adverse reaction. If this scares you...then don't do it.
If you're lucky, there are some escapees still in the pan...to the cook go the spoils of war!!
We will continue to monitor the internal temperature of the butts by peeling back 1 layer of foil and opening the end of one of the packages of the LARGEST butt and poke a meat thermo in there to check the temp. OR, if you have a digital thermo with a probe that you can leave in the meat, by all means. If you don't, be sure to reseal the foil over the poked hole to reduce the amount of steam and vaporized goodness that will escape.
When they reach 210F...that will be the next post.
just a quick post to let everyone know that at hour 16, the butts in the oven have reached 200F. The ones on the smoker are gaining speed.
EDIT -- At hr 18, all butts have reached 210F. I've put them all in the oven and am holding temp in there at 200F until it's time to leave at 6pm (in 2.5hrs). When it's time to load everything up, I'll take more pics and at the event to show you how to unwrap, shred and serve.
Time to pack up for the par-tay...
The butt's have all reached a minimum internal temp of 210F. I have to be at the partay in about an hour or so, and start shredding, so I'm packing up.
The conveyance I'll be using is a good ol' COOLER.
The insulation properties of a cooler work both ways, they keep cold stuff cold and hot stuff hot.
I have kept a cooler packed full of 200F meat like this for over 9 hours and it only lost 50 degrees of temperature, which is STILL above safe food handling standards. Just follow this rule ** ONCE YOU PACK IT, DO NOT PEEK** unless of course you'll pulling meat out to shred and eat.
Word of caution. There is a monster who lurks in most households in America. Sure, they're cute, playful, and might even retrieve a duck for you, but if there's BBQ in the house and it's accessible, man's best friend becomes a cook's worst enemy. Think "bumpus hounds" from A Christmas Story.
Meet Carnivourous Chompimus Barbequimus Munchimus
also known as 'Gracie' when she's not smelled pork butt and her eyes turn from soft 'love me' brown to demon green.
If you leave a cooler unattended put something HEAVY on the lid to keep the pooch from growing thumbs and ruining your hard work.
The cooler gets loaded into the van shortly before take off (because it's still COLD outside) and away we go. Next post will be LATE tonight....Shredding, Serving and Sharing.
Different smokers call for different techniques. The technique I described above is for vertical smokers like what is pictured in my post. Don't get hung up on technicalities such as ratio of lit:unlit. Ask your neighbor what technique he has found that works the best for him. The amount of lit:unlit fuel has just as much to do with air control. Choke a fire, it burns cool; run it wide open, it gets HOT!!!
