Another Newbie at Overnight Cooking Pork

bigguy136

I've tried to read most everything so sorry in advance.

I don't know what cut of meat for pulled pork to be easy and taste good for my first time. Is a boston butt what most prefer?

I have a Stokers so I'm planning on 225°. Should I go 250°?

Can I wait until the butt gets to 195°, pull it and eat it or do I have to wrap with foil, put in cooler ect?

Sorry if these questions have been answered already.

bluegrasstiger

Ditto what Tweev says about trimming the fat for a better bark.  My first butts I left the fat on and all of the rub was on the fat, and the first thing to be discarded when pulling.  Trimming the fat means more bark and less wasted rub.  I ask the butcher to trim to 1/8 or less now, and sometimes trim even more when I get home.

Most of the time I am too impatient to let the butt rest....I'm ready to eat.  I pull it as soon as it comes inside and have not noticed a difference between resting and not resting.

bigguy136

I just picked up two 7 LB boston butts. Reading the BGE book for a rub, it says to use your favorite dry BBQ rub. I have Willingham's original. Should I use that or make something else?

BGE book also says you can inject the butt. Does anyone injuct or just cook?

knisely1

Did my first butt on the BGE last weekend, but have done a bunch of others on other smokers....  Rookie error of letting initial temps get too high, then had to regulate down.  Still got 16hrs out of the coals, but would not have had the 6am shocker of finding the dome temp at 150 if I'd planned correctly.

Good luck!

knisely1

BTW, the butt turned out great...forgiving piece of meat.....

smokinjim

There shouldn't be any need to inject on the BGE. I've injected several butts and not really seen any benefit from doing so. The last two we smoked were at 7lbs each, a spicy generic rub that my wife makes, NO injection, and with perfect results. They sat for 30 minutes then were shredded and consumed by a hungry mob.

Squeezy

I agree ... no need to inject, however I like to inject for flavor. I mix apple juice, apple cider vinegar with mango juice.

stilllaughing

On occasion I inject a vinegar based hot sauce for flavor.

Use whatever rub you like. For home and my business I never put rub on butts. I season the meat when I pull it. I also leave the fat cap on and cook it on the bottom. Whatever is on the grid will stick so I'd rather it be fat than meat.

If you're using a Stoker and setting it at 225 the grid you'll be fine. Just remember that your temps are going to drop when you put that big chunk of cold meat on the grid. Just leave it alone and it'll get back up to temp when the outside of the butt warms up. That goes for whether you're using a Stoker or not. If you had your fire stabile it'll get back there. Too many people spend way too much time chasing temps because they didn't stabilize long enough or didn't have the patience to leave it alone. Depending on how much meat you put on it can take a couple of hours to get back up to temp.

EGGHEADBOB

I regularly do 2 7lbs Boston Butts overnight at 250 degrees.  The Basic Rub in the BGE Cookbook is a solid go to especially when paired with an injected vinegar based sauce (East Coast NC Style). 

I also wrap in tin foil and place in a cooler with beach towels for 1-2 hours afterwards.  

But as everyone finds out, it's hard to mess this cut of meat up.  Main thing is to make sure you get the meat temperature to 190 so the bone pulls right out.  You're on the BGE so it's going to taste good regardless!