First Pork Butt smoked on the grill

[helix_rider]

Hello all. Saturday morning I smoked my first Pork Butt on the 18.5" Weber Kettle. Offset cooking/using bricks to hold-back charcoal, foiled the charcoal grate to force air-flow up through the burning coals, drip pan, minion-method of lighting, mixture of Cherry and Apple smoke chips, overall a pretty standard procedure... At 2-hours, it's looking good and temp holding steady at 275-deg at the lid. The lid of the 18.5" kettle is short enough that there's only about a 10-deg drop from the lid temp to grate temp. Sorry about the poor image quality, it's a junk camera. Looks good so far. At the 6-hour mark the internal temp is at 180-deg. - finally got past the 165-170 deg. plateau that pork butts are famous for. Shouldn't be too much longer. I just now added a dozen new briquettes to the kettle - amazing! The Butt finally hit 198 deg. at 8 hours - good enough. Brought it in, let it rest, and got ready for business. And here it is - pulled and ready for sandwiches. The brown-sugar based rub sure gave it a nice bark - tastes good too!

 

[aquariuscsm]

Good lord that looks GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[dave123]

Save me the bark I can never get enough I do about 5 to 10 butts a year looks good.

 

[mikiee]

Looks good, with all that room, you should have cooked 2 more. Can never have enough barbecue!

 

[helix_rider]

Originally Posted By: mikiee

Looks good, with all that room, you should have cooked 2 more. Can never have enough barbecue!

Next time i'll do 2 at once - that's for sure. Funny, with all of that meat it sure doesn't last long...

 

[HTSS_TR]

Looks so Yummy !!! If I was you I would cook 3 or 4 at a time. Smoked Pork Butt is my favorite, not too dry or too fatty.

 

[mechanicx]

Looks really good. No one could dream of grilling up here in January it's so cold. So you only had to add more charcoal briquets after 6 hrs of smoking? Did I read that right? Amazing.

 

[helix_rider]

Originally Posted By: mechanicx

So you only had to add more charcoal briquets after 6 hrs of smoking? Did I read that right? Amazing.

Yes, by wrapping the charcoal grate (outside of the bricks) with foil, the air coming up through the bottom vents has to flow through the burning charcoal. Restricting airflow from the bottom (open approx. 1/8")- with top vent 1/2 to 2/3 open, you can get quite a long burn time and pretty consistent temps. Once going well and settled in, it ran at a steady 275-deg. for 2-hours before I had to adjust the airflow. Of course, the Minion Method of lighting the charcoal is also required to get multi-hour burn times with ordinary charcoal. This method consists of placing 4-6 ash-covered burning coals on top of the pile of unburnt charcoal. By doing this, it takes a couple of hours just to get the lower coals lit, much less burnt. Also, you don't start the meat with full heat - as you would if you put it above a bed of lit coals. It was probably 3.5 to 4 hours before all of the charcoal was ash covered and really smoldering. I learned that trick on the Weber Virtual Bullet Forum - great giys and a lot of knowledge there - stuff i'd never thought of..

 

[Ausfahrt]

Great idea Helixrider! You inspired me to give it a go myself. My wife and I have been considering one of those expensive Big Green Egg porcelain cookers but I think that I will just get a new Weber since ours is on its last leg. I put a water pan under the meat and used my grinder to cut away a portion of the top grate which gave me easier access to add coals or hickory chips and it turned out great. Thanks. This pic was taken about two hours into the process and I didn't take an after pic...maybe I was too anxious to dig in?

 

[Shannow]

Great thread. I bought a Weber one touch gold plus (might be an Oz spec) last weekend (8 days ago),and have used it 3 out of the last8 days. It's like a long lost best friend, as I bought one for my parents 25 years ago, and have cooked my Birthday dinner every Christmas I've been with them (Pork and Turkey) bar the last two. Roast lamb over coconut charcoal, boerwurst over coconut charcoal, and a great big chook. Threw out (what was left) of my Brinkmann yesterday.