A couple of first's - Overnight cook and pulled pork!

SJ21XDC

Sunday was my mom's birthday so I decided it was time to try a long cook on the egg.  I picked up a couple of 6 pound pork butts & some BBQ sauces Friday on my way home from work.   

Started by cleaning the egg and filling it with new Rockwood and layers of hickory chunks & chips.  Lit around 6 pm and let stabilize around 220 for about an hour and half just to make sure I had a handle on the low temperature.  Put the platesetter and a foil pan with about an inch of water and went in to prep the butt's with evo and a half of bottle of Stubb's pork rub on each one.  At around 8 pm, I put both butts on (fat cap up) and got to use my maverick thermometer for the first time (one probe in one of the butts and the other on the grate).  Went in and watched my Vol's get pounded by Bama :(  Checked everything before going to bed @ midnight and the temp was still setting around 230.  Woke up around 7:00 Sunday morning and the temp had fallen to 180 with the butts @ 142.  I was afraid the fire had gone out, but I opened it up and it climbed right up to around 250.  It stayed between 230 and 250 most of the day.  Went to church and lunch and when we got home the meat had climbed to 164.  I started to worry around 2:00 when the grid temp started to fall.  I opened up the bottom vent all the way and after 20 minutes it started to climb again.  I let it get up to around 300 before closing it down again.  Anyway, I finally got the butts up to around 205-207 @ 4:00 pm and they were so tender one of them fell apart taking it off the grill!  I foil/towel wrap them and put them in a cooler until 6:00.  Ran the temp on the grill up to 400 and grilled some pineapple with a little brown sugar.  Pulled the pork and had everything ready for company @ 6:30   Tried 3 different sauces, Famous Dave's Rich & Sassy, Jack Daniel's No. 7 and Johnny Harris.  The Jack Daniel's and Famous Dave's were good but the Johnny Harris will be thrown out.  It was basically ketchup and vinegar and nobody liked it :(  Other than it taking 20 hours to cook, everything went exactly to plan.  The taste was incredible and everyone said it was the best they had ever tasted!!

On a side note, my boys where making fun of me, and asked why I take pictures of the food I'm cooking   I told them, it's because of the people on this forum!.  If it weren't for everyone's help here, I would still only be cooking dried out steaks and burgers.  They now understand  

 

XC242

Nailed it!!!

Grillin_beers

Good looking bark man! I love pulled pork is so easy on the egg but everyone is always so impressed. Congrats on your first overnighter. Btw try dizzy pig's pineapple head on your grilled pineapple sometime. It's fantastic.

Smokinpig

Looks good.

blind99

Nice job! Tell your kids there are random people out there who liked the dinner pictures!

tulocay

Nice looking butt.

SGH

Brother that is some fine looking grub there. Awesome job my friend!! =D>

anzyegg

That's a very well worth it low and slow.... Excellent cook!!!

grege345

You win for thread of the day!

SJ21XDC

XC242 said:

Nailed it!!!

Thank you!

SJ21XDC

Grillin_beers said:

Good looking bark man! I love pulled pork is so easy on the egg but everyone is always so impressed. Congrats on your first overnighter. Btw try dizzy pig's pineapple head on your grilled pineapple sometime. It's fantastic.

Thank you!  I've been wanting to try pineapple head but haven't found it around here locally.

SJ21XDC

blind99 said:

Nice job! Tell your kids there are random people out there who liked the dinner pictures!

Thank you!  I'll let them know

SJ21XDC

SGH said:

Brother that is some fine looking grub there. Awesome job my friend!! =D>

Thank you for the kind words!!  I was a little surprised it all came together so well.  I have been asked to do this again in the near future  I think my next challenge will be a brisket!

theyolksonyou

SJ21XDC said:

Grillin_beers said:

Good looking bark man! I love pulled pork is so easy on the egg but everyone is always so impressed. Congrats on your first overnighter. Btw try dizzy pig's pineapple head on your grilled pineapple sometime. It's fantastic.

Thank you!  I've been wanting to try pineapple head but haven't found it around here locally.

@sj21xdc I'm about 20 miles south of you and I can't find any DP products around here. Amazon is your friend. And nice cook!

SJ21XDC

anzyegg said:

That's a very well worth it low and slow.... Excellent cook!!!

Thank you!

SJ21XDC

grege345 said:

You win for thread of the day!

I don't know about that, but thank you!

lousubcap

Home-run right there.  Great cook and way to stay with it when tossed a couple of curves.  I'm sure the eats were well worth the journey.

SJ21XDC

lousubcap said:

Home-run right there.  Great cook and way to stay with it when tossed a couple of curves.  I'm sure the eats were well worth the journey.

Thank you!  I'm having a great time on the BGE journey!

WeberWho

The pulled pork looks awesome! Is the water for tenderness? If so you should give it a try without the water. The egg will keep it tender and juicy without the water. The moisture coming from the water in the drip pan might soften your rub and make it mushy. Just a thought. Looks like you had real good results. Nice cook!

Fred19Flintstone

Terrific job! I do butts quite a bit and believe me the water is not needed.

SJ21XDC

WeberWho? said:

The pulled pork looks awesome! Is the water for tenderness? If so you should give it a try without the water. The egg will keep it tender and juicy without the water. The moisture coming from the water in the drip pan might soften your rub and make it mushy. Just a thought. Looks like you had real good results. Nice cook!

Thank you!  This was the first time attempting butts and I think I read to use water somewhere.  The bark didn't seem to be mushy but I wonder if the water pushed the cook time out to 20 hours?  I look forward to trying it next time without water!

SJ21XDC

Fred19Flintstone said:

Terrific job! I do butts quite a bit and believe me the water is not needed.

Thank you!  I will try it without water next time!

Griffin

Looks great. Nice job. :-bd

SJ21XDC

Griffin said:

Looks great. Nice job. :-bd

Thank you!

WeberWho

SJ21XDC said:

WeberWho? said:

The pulled pork looks awesome! Is the water for tenderness? If so you should give it a try without the water. The egg will keep it tender and juicy without the water. The moisture coming from the water in the drip pan might soften your rub and make it mushy. Just a thought. Looks like you had real good results. Nice cook!

Thank you!  This was the first time attempting butts and I think I read to use water somewhere.  The bark didn't seem to be mushy but I wonder if the water pushed the cook time out to 20 hours?  I look forward to trying it next time without water!


I could only wish my first pulled pork looked that good! Most smaller and cheaper smokers don't have the insulation that the Big Green Egg has. Without any good insulation the meat tends to dry out. So they use water (water smoker) to help with moisture issues. I went from a cheap water smoker to an egg and very much enjoy skipping the part where you have to add charcoal and water during smokes

GATraveller

I always use a drip pan with a bit of water to keep the drippings from flaring up on the plate setter.  I don't think that would slow down the cook.  It would be the drop off in pit temp that extended the cook.  I grew up going to the original Johnny Harris restaurant in Savannah and love their sauce........different strokes I guess.

SJ21XDC

WeberWho? said:

WeberWho? said:

The pulled pork looks awesome! Is the water for tenderness? If so you should give it a try without the water. The egg will keep it tender and juicy without the water. The moisture coming from the water in the drip pan might soften your rub and make it mushy. Just a thought. Looks like you had real good results. Nice cook!

Thank you!  This was the first time attempting butts and I think I read to use water somewhere.  The bark didn't seem to be mushy but I wonder if the water pushed the cook time out to 20 hours?  I look forward to trying it next time without water!

I could only wish my first pulled pork looked that good! Most smaller and cheaper smokers don't have the insulation that the Big Green Egg has. Without any good insulation the meat tends to dry out. So they use water (water smoker) to help with moisture issues. I went from a cheap water smoker to an egg and very much enjoy skipping the part where you have to add charcoal and water during smokes

Thanks for the info!  Next time will be without water to see if I notice a difference.

SJ21XDC

GATraveller said:

I always use a drip pan with a bit of water to keep the drippings from flaring up on the plate setter.  I don't think that would slow down the cook.  It would be the drop off in pit temp that extended the cook.  I grew up going to the original Johnny Harris restaurant in Savannah and love their sauce........different strokes I guess.

Thanks for the info!

Yes, I saw they were from Savannah and that's why I picked it up.  I should have tried one of their other sauces.  This one tasted like a funky ketchup and just didn't seem to go with pork.  But like you said different strokes