Now we're cooking

Always good to start with less and move up.

You'll probably decide you could start with more,or add more during the cook.

Remember ,much of your flavor will come from the rub and vinegar sauce you might add while pulling the meat.

Tom, we often use the North Carolina vinegar sauce on pulled pork when we eat it. But I normally do not add the sauce when I am pulling it, considering that some of it will go into the frig and later into the freezer. Nor have I added rub in the past when I've pulled it. Should I be adding one or both of these things when I pull it?

It's a personal choice,but many do.

As all cooks will tell you,season when product first comes off the heat/grease/water, etc.,to get it seasoned.

Some comp cooks will even grind their rub to the consistency of popcorn salt,to facilitate instant takeup by the warm moist meat.

Some inject a sauce,with their rub on large pieces of meat.

A light vinegar sauce,can add moisture,as well as eliminating any greasy mouth feel,without changing the flavor much.

This has been an old NC standby,as you mentioned.

Congrats gc/tx.

Me? I inject them. Pull them and add sauce and rub at the end. If you don't, just make sure that when you serve it, everyone gets some bark, because that's where you put the flavor.

Well, it's 3:00 p.m. now and that puppy has been cooking since just before 8:00 p.m. yesterday -- 19 hours, and is at 195* now. I want to keep cooking it until it hits 200*. When cooking in the WSM in the past, I've had them hit plateaus and they all take a long time, but one has never taken this long. I didn't open the door for the first 12 or so hours and opened it then just to ensure that my probe was poked into lean and not fat. It was an 8+ lb. butt. I guess it will be done when it's done. If this is normal, it takes considerably longer to cook a butt in a Smokette than in a WSM -- which is not a problem, just something I've got to get used to.

At 4:00 p.m. it was still registering 195*. I opened the door, took a little sample, closed the door and turned the dial down to about 175* to keep it warm until I take it out at 5:00 p.m. to let it rest for a bit and then pull it. The sample was very tender, but a little dry. Some NC sauce will take care of that though. I'll post again tonight after dinner to report on it.

I posted the results of my first cook in the Open Forum under the topic: Question about Holding Pork Butt in Cooker. Thanks for all the help.