Pulled Pig experience

[sjmeff]

I wanted to thank the folks on this thread for advice regarding pulled pork. This weekend I smoked two bone-in shoulder roasts (~8 lbs each) for a party and they came out perfectly.

Here is the process that I used:

1) Applied dry rub 24 hrs. ahead of cooking.
2) Fired oven to pizza temps night before; spread out coals and then put door on before bedtime.
3) In the morning, I took off the door for about 90 minutes to let the oven cool a bit. Also took meat out of fridge about 60 min before cooking.
4) Moved the few remaining coals to one side and put in smoker box filled with soaked hickory chips. (I added more chips a few times to keep the smoke going.)
5) Put roasts on Tuscan-like grill (firebricks holding up grill grates) in center of oven. Put the door back in place with it cracked open.

It took about 6 hours to get the roasts up to 195 in the center. Afterwards I put the roasting pans in a closed paper bag for an hour, then let them cool a bit and pulled the meat. They were delicious. We got lots of compliments.

[kellytoronto]

Why would you heat to pizza temps overnight vs. just warm it up a bit in the AM?

[sjmeff]

I think you could do it that way. In my case, I wanted to get it cooking first thing in the morning to be ready by lunch. I was also aiming for "low and slow," so I wanted to make sure the oven wasn't super hot, but saturated enough to cook slowly for several hours (6 hrs in my case).

I also wanted to avoid having to re-fire the oven as some above commented that it could leave an acrid taste in the meat. The only smoke that I had was from a few pieces of hickory.

I fired it too late in the day, so in the morning I had to let it cool off. Next time I'll light it earlier in the day before I close it for the night.

In any event, I think there are probably many ways to do it. I've found that my oven is pretty forgiving. I've had few cases of being disappointed with the final product.

[wlively]

Originally Posted by kellytoronto

Why would you heat to pizza temps overnight vs. just warm it up a bit in the AM?

I just did 5 10lb each pork shoulders, at the same time, for our fly-in on Saturday. Put them in at 300 deg and it took just a few minutes short of 12 hours. They were a big hit, you gotta love these ovens.

To answer, you want to make sure you saturate the oven to the temps you want. It will be very hard to tell if you don't have in brick thermocouples. I do, and have tried to conserve wood and time by shorting the burn and found that if I don't shoot for center of mass temps at least 200 deg F above my target that the heat drops too rapidly as the temps normalize across the mass of the oven. It is better to be too hot then run out of heat.

[Tscarborough]

I track my temps from flame out for 5 days every time so that I can do my burning at the right time. I can't wait to make this pork, it sounds great.

[tdibratt]

Just tried a pulled pork on the weekend. Put about 8 LB pork shoulder with dry rub into a cast iron dutch oven. It was sitting with the rub on it for 24 hours. I put it in the pot fat side up. I then poured a bottle of beer into the pot careful not to wash the rub off the top. Added 1 chopped cooking onion.

I fired up the oven and got it to about 500 degrees or so and then I needed to head out so I threw the pot (lid on) in with the fire still going around 8AM and told my wife to come back around 9:30 and just put the door on the oven and keave it open a crack so any excess smoke would get out.

Came back home around 1PM, and took a look. The pork was nicely charred on the outside and I stuck a thermometer in it and it was done. It pulled apart so nicely and was very very juicy. Invited some friends over and everyone was amazed.

I plan on doing it again this weekend but would like a little smoke which means maybe I should keep the lid off the pot at the start and let it get some smoke.

Thoughts?

[Stan]

I did a pork shoulder that I boned, stuffed, and rolled (a la Porchetta). I stuck it in at 350 degrees around midnight and came back to perfect, pull-able pork at 6 am. It was a sleepless night (worrying!), but well worth it.

Stan