That's an easy statement to make as this was my first time using smoking a pork butt and first time using a WSM. I read the Weber Blog by Mike Lang on how to cook a pork butt on a WSM. Seemed simple enough. Got up at 5 AM to get things going. Used a homemade rub recommended to me by Mike in Roseville. It was a full moon and being up that early gave my an opportunity to take a great photo of the moon disappearing behind the ridge.
Sorry, as you can see I get easily distracted. Set up the WSM and started the coals as recommended on the blog. It said 225 is the ideal temperature for smoking and it should take 8 to 10 hours. Piece of cake, I got this. The WSM came up to temp quickly and settled in around 225 degrees following the instructions from the blog. I put on the butt and added three chunks of cherry wood. Added water to the pan and started smoking at 6 AM.
Here's the butt three hours in. Internal meat temp was at 131 degrees.
This is to easy. Should be off by by 4 PM, wrap and rest and will be eating by 6 PM.
Everything was great until around 3 PM. The internal meat temp had reached 177.3 degrees and all of sudden stopped climbing and started dropping. No worries, this must be the "stall" I hear everyone talking about. I watch it keep dropping until it reaches 176 degrees and still dropping. Now I start to to panic. This is not a stall, it's a full on retreat. Text my smoking sensei Mike and explain to him what is happening. He asks what temp is the WSM at. I text him 225. He responds that I need to spike the temps in the smoker. I open all the bowl vents, crack the lid a touch and within 15 minutes have the temp up to 250 degrees. After about 30 minutes the meat temp starts to slowly climb again. The smoker temp continues to rise and at Mike's suggestion, I start spraying the butt every 30 minutes with a apple juice and apple cider vinegar mixture. At about 6:30, with the meat temp only at 185 degrees, I made the tactical decision to eat leftover pork ribs I cooked the previous evening.
Eventually, after 13 1/2 hours, the internal temp of the butt reached 200 degrees. It was an epic battle but I think it came out looking pretty good.
Around 8:30 PM, I removed the pork from the ice chest. The bone pulled out using two fingers. I broke it apart into meal size chunks and after letting it cool, bagged it in ziplocks and refrigerated it. For two days now my wife and I have enjoyed pulled pork sandwiches on grilled potato buns with apple coleslaw. I used Kinders BBQ sauce cut with 1/4 apple cider vinegar.
Big props to
@Mike in Roseville for talking me in off the ledge and walking me through the finishing steps. I now have a bit more knowledge to tackle my next attempt at using the WSM.
Topic: Best smoked pork butt I've ever done (Read 1720 times)