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I've always wanted to do a Pork Butt (also known as a Boston Butt). Pulled Pork is probably my favorite type of barbeque, so the idea of having a massive amount on hand is very appealing. It is a pretty long cook; my total time was right around 11 hours, but the results were well worth it.
Meat: 12.6lb Boneless Pork Butt from Costco @$2.29/pound - $29 plus tax total. Yielded about 7lbs of pulled pork which is about 55% of the mass.
Preparation: Since the rough rule for a Pork Butt is around 1.5 hours smoking time per pound, I cut my butt into two 6.3lb sections. Coated with yellow mustard the night before and covered with McCormick Grill Mates Smokehouse Maple Seasoning (basically had everything I would put in a rub and I have a lot of it on hand). I do think it is value added to have a giant metal bowl to put the rub in the bottom and then rotate meat to the rub rather than trying to actually apply the rub directly to the meat with your hands. It helps to create a more uniform distribution. I applied another coating right before putting the meat on the grill. Soaked my wood flavoring chips in a blender bottle over night to make sure they got good and moist.
Grill Setup: Filled the firebox completely with lump charcoal. I have a Large BGE and this cook will use the whole firebox. I had to refill in the last hour of the cook to get it across the finish line and will be topping-off sooner in future cooks. Lit the grill with a coil starter placed right on top of the charcoal for 10 minutes (generates a small but sustainable flame) with both top and bottoms vents wide open. Added a handful of the soaked woodchips around the edges of the firebox to start (the rest will go in at halftime). Wrapped the conveggtor insert in aluminum foil for easier cleanup and put it into position before adding a disposable buffet tray full of water as a water pan. A cleaned grill grate went on top and we were off to the races.
The Cook: Once the grill thermometer got to around 230F, I closed the bottom vent to 1in. aperture and the top vent to around a finger's width. Temps settled around 255F after 15 minutes and I brought it down to 250 by slightly adjusting the top vent. Gave the egg a quick burp and added the pork butts at around 8:30AM. They fit well enough, but I doubt I would be able to manage more than 15 pounds total on the Large BGE. Over the next 30 minutes, I sat with the egg and fiddled with the vents to get back to my target 250F. Once set, temperatures stayed rock solid for the first three or so hours. I was nervous and checked on it every 30 minutes somewhat unnecessarily. Hourly checks would probably be fine. At 2.45 PM, I finally stuck in a meat thermometer and found the temps to be right around 150F, right at the stall point. Taking both butts off for a moment, I wrapped each in aluminum foil with 4 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar (the "Texas Crutch") before returning them to the egg. I should have refilled the firebox at this point. A wee bit of vent fiddling on my part and we were back to smoke town. I was targeting around 6PM (9 hours) for total cook time, so at 5PM started checking more regularly again. The thermometer probes went in for good this time. Unfortunately, my temps started declining to the point that I had both vents wide open just trying to keep things above 225F. The Firebox was depleted, so I lost probably 10 minutes taking the meat off to get some new coals going and the temps restabilized. Thankfully, I have a chimney starter left over from by Weber grilling days, so I was able to get the coals lit for a speedy swap while the meat was still going. Back at 250F, temps held solid on the new fuel for the rest of the cook. One of the butts got up to 202F before the second butt made it to the target 195F internal at about 6:30PM. It was a learning experience for me as I'm used to keeping things as much lower temperatures, but the pork butt needs high heat for some time to break down the collagen and render the fat. I threw the two butts in a cooler with a towel to rest for 30 minutes and prepped the sides, baked beans and roasted broccoli. After the rest, a quick date with my bear claw shredders reduced the pork to happy pulled morsels.
The Verdict: Tasty Tasty! Not the best BBQ that I have ever had, but certainly above average. I definitely have some notes for myself for next time, but pork butt is a very forgiving cut when prepared this way and it was quite nice and juicy. There could have been more strong smoke flavor, so I will likely up the wood chip dose on future cooks. Too lazy to whip up a homemade sauce this time, I went with Kinder's Original Sauce which is semi-sweet and one of the better widely available grocery store sauces. For the money, some barbeque pulled pork is a fantastic value and with the Big Green Egg, not that much effort. Will definitely be making this again!
Tips & Lessons Learned:
- Get a large metal bowl and toss the pork instead of hand rubbing
- Cutting a pork butt in half works great and really helps reduce overall cooking time
- Be checking for the stall, once you hit 150F internal go ahead and wrap with the Texas crutch to avoid losing time
- Definitely refill your firebox during the stall when you're wrapping the pork
- Cover the conveggtor in aluminum foil to help with clean-up