Newbie doing first Pork Butt

atlpats

Getting the Egg ready for my first Butt! We opted to to a pork butt this year for Easter and what better to do it on than our New Egg. This will be my 4th overall Cook on the Egg, so I am excited to see how this turns out. Plan on doing an 18 hour smoke.

Grandpas Grub

 
Congratulations, easy, fun and great resulting cook.

If you don't have remote thermometers or powered vent system, do yourself a favor and check the egg a couple of times during the night. You don't want to wake up to find the egg jumped temp or the lump went out. The egg is well capable of handling a hands off cook. I like Pres. Ray-Gun's comment... "trust but verify".

take some pictures and let us know how the cook turned out.

I am doing a spiral cut ham this year and going to finishing it off with a Honey Baked Ham crust or give it a good attempt. Doing some potato rolls on the egg and some colored develed eggs. Love the Easter Cooks.





To finish off the meal a couple of these. This one won't be egg'd.


Good cookin.

GG

atlpats

Put the butt on about 15 minutes ago, I am teetering around 230-240 now, just trying to tune the temp now.

I actually do have the Maverick ET73, so once I get the temp tuned in I should be good to go.

atlpats

GG, that looks great!!

2Fategghead

I usually get the biggest bone in butt I can find. I will put my favorite rub all over it and get the egg up to 250F dome for about an hour. Have the plate setter in the egg while stabilizing. I use a foil lined drip pan for easy clean up. I have an instant read thermapen but, a cheap one will do. I pull the butt for shredding between 195F 200F internal meat temp. I use time as my guide and each butt is unique figure 60 to 90 min per pound of butt. You will be fine. Take pic's and let us know how it's going.

atlpats

I seem to be having issues keeping the temp down near 230. My grid temp is registering at 260, dome temp is about 310. The bottom vent is about and inch open, and the metal top is closed and the daisy vents are half way. Should I start creeping the bottom vent closed a little at a time?

atlpats

Here is the butt with the rub, which I put on about 10 hours before putting it on the egg.

atlpats

Okay the temp is slowing coming back down. So I'll drink some more beer and monitor it.

Thanks for all of the tips!

Scottborasjr

Yeah, normally for a super low cook, my bottom vent is only maybe 1/4 to 1/2 inch open depending on wind and outside temp. Good luck

TRPIV

Should be a fun journey. You didn't mention how large it was. How big is your butt? :blink: :laugh:

I'll be starting mine in a few hours. I already have the charcoal all set in the firebox. I'll be doing two 8lb'ers. One 8.8 and the other is 8.4. I'll be sharing with the neighbors and about 20 adults. We'll have leftovers, but doing one 8lber is just as easy as doing two.

What rub did you use? More importantly, what beer are you drinking?

Good Luck and Happy Easter!

Ted

2Fategghead

Don't take this wrong i'm just saying.

I must ask you if you put your butt in after your egg was at the 250F dome mark for a good amount of time? The reason I ask is you don't want to go chasing the temps.

If you did stabilize I would consider not changing the vents much and if you do change a little then wait a while for the egg to respond.

Grandpas Grub did this work on a large I believe. Click on this link and use as a guide.

http://www.eggheadforum.com/index.php?option=com_simpleboard&func=view&id=670088&catid=1

atlpats

The temp is slowing going the right way now, which is down. I am a little concerned about the meat temp. It was almost room temp when I put it on, and it's up around 90. could be the placement of my probe, but I'm thinking that temp will begin to stabilize once it's been on there a bit.

The but is about 8.8 pounds, The rub is my own.

Before I put the rub on, I coated it with yellow mustard.
The rub:

Brown Sugar, Garlic Powder, Salt, Paprika, Chili Powder, Lemon Pepper, Cayenne Pepper, White pepper, White Sugar, Course ground Pepper.

Beer:
Sam Adams Nobil Pils and New Belgium Mighty Arrow

Scottborasjr

Really like that Noble Pils, really a fine beer, That rub sounds good, but I would look into using Turbinado sugar perhaps if you ever want to use it at a higher temperature. Or just in case the lump gets a little out of control.

Carolina Q

half the time, I don't even bother with a meat probe. I know it's gonna take forever to cook so I just start checking when I think it should be almost done.

As for the dome temp (the only egg temp I care about), I make sure it's at 250° for at least 30-45 mins before I even think about putting the butt on. Stabilizing the temp. Once I'm satisfied that it's not going up or down, I put the butt on. Temp drops immediately. Don't mess with the vents when you see this happen. It'll come back up after a while.

If you don't have the temp stable, you will be adjusting vents all night long. 250° seems to be a good, easy to maintain, temp. Lower temps are harder to maintain.

Good luck!

atlpats

Eggers your insight is indispensable! Right now I am getting upper 240's so I am comfortable with that. I took a meat thermometer reading it was about 15 degrees lowers than the probe, so I am just smokin' now.



Cheers!

Scottborasjr

oh, I've never seen that Raspberry Shock Top, that sounds good as well. :ohmy:

atlpats

It actually is pretty good. I think it's a new beer from them.

TRPIV

The noble pils is great.

I'm currently sipping on a 21A Watermelon Wheat. once I start the egg, I'll start drinking my own home brew.

Almost ready to start rubbing my butts.

atlpats

The butt is coming along nicely, its been on for close to 9 hours. Internal temp is 179 on the probe, and it's 174 with a meat thermometer. Pit Temp jump on me around midnight to a little over 260 so I adjusted the daisy wheel a bit and I a now hovering around in the mid/upper 220's. So hopefully I can maintain that temp for the remainder of the cook.

TRPIV, that brew sounds interesting. I had a watermelon flavored beer at one of the local Brew Pubs last fall. I think I am going to be brewing my first batch of beer in over 5 years this week. Can't wait..

2Fategghead

Just something to keep in mind.

If you are shooting for your internal butt temp for pulled pork to be in the neighborhood of 195F to 200F it may take a while to get there with a low pit temp.

I would consider bumping the pit up to 250F dome. Tim

atlpats

Thanks for the tip, I plan on bumping up the temp in another hour or 2.

atlpats

I am actaully not at home, my wife just called and said that the grid temp is at 256 and the internal probe temp is at 197, which is probably about 5-7 degrees higher, so its probably around 190. So I had her shutdown the vents. Does this need to come off now?

Hub

Jason,

I am just down the road from you in beautiful and lovely Villa Rica, Georgia. It looks like your first super slow cook is going great. You type much better than me after a day of egging and drinking beer :laugh:

2Fategghead

This is the time I would open the dome and check the meat temps with my instant read thermapen in different places just in case the probe is in a pocket of hot fat. I then would wrap in heavy duty foil twice then in a towel then in a small cooler. You can hold it there for several hours.

If you plan to eat it soon you could let it rest and cool off so it can be pulled.

I sometimes sprinkle some rub in with the shredded pork.

Happy Easter and enjoy. :P

atlpats

I just got back home, the probe was still reading 197, pit temp had gone down to 160's. I checked the butt temp in a few different places and I don't think its done yet. Still 180's to 190 in different spots.. Glad I had my wife shut it down.. I'd much rather bring the temp back up in the pit and monitor the butt while I am home.

Thanks for all of the pointers..

Is it too early for a beer?

atlpats

2Fategghead

You'll be fine simply bring your egg back up to temp. Remember your butt can be double wrapped in foil and in a towel in a cooler for some time if need be.

atlpats

@2Fategghead - thanks for all of the tips!! brining the temp in the pit backup now.

ShedFarm

Those look beautiful, Grandpa's Grub!

TRPIV

atlpats wrote:

Is it too early for a beer?

Nope. I hear if you at tomato juice to it, people won't look at you funny.

atlpats

The butt if off of the Egg, wrapped in foil and towel and in the cooler. Ended up being a 16 hour smoke. I took a cooks treat and it was amazing. Thanks for all of the tips and cheers!!