I let it roll overnight unwrapped. Went to bed with the maverick on the night stand set for lows and highs. At 3 am my phone alarm went off, due to me not turning it off for my normal work schedule. I looked at the maverick and the chamber was at 230 and the food was at 171. So I went back to sleep. Got up at 5:50 thinking something was wrong, why has the maverick not gone off? Is it broken? Great, now I have 2 mavericks down!!! So I take it to the other room to look at it to see what is wrong. Nope nothing wrong, the cook chamber is sitting firm at 225 and food still at 171. I need to check the lower meat temps, but all of my heat will go away, but I need to get this done soon, I will be gone all day. So I open the smoker and I see this.......
Not bad! Not bad at all is what I think. It looks a bit darker then I like, but looks good. So I remove the top layer and check for tenderness and they are spot on (more later on this). I check the bottom for tenderness and they are done, a little much for me. So I bring them inside to look more.
I get situated to start hand pulling them. As I am going through them, I am very happy with what I am seeing from the butts. They are moist, tender and still have texture. I was also testing and playing with trimming them for competitions, so I was also looking at how the "money muscle" came out (sorry no pics of that. Goopy hands and no helper). I proceed to hand pull everything and get it ready for bagging (some was for me to stock up and the rest was for my father in law). As I said earlier, I also wanted to see how far I can push this smoker. Besides I love to cook and the new smoker needed to be seasoned more.......:biggrin:
Drum roll please...........
I ended up with a very full 4" deep hotel steemer pan full of pulled deliciousness. I added 1 can of apple juice concentrate and 1 can of water, just to add a little liquid back into the pan. I found the picnics a little on the dry side and I usually will have liquid from being wrapped in a pan to throw back in with the pork.
Who is ready for the money shots?????
I will have to declare the winner of this battle was....... The Jumbo Mini!!!!
The coaching staff struggled in the beginning, but once they settled down and allowed the Jumbo to do its thing, it was all over for the pork bits.......
Ok, so I mentioned earlier about the tenderness and more later. I know it is pretty much a standard on every forum to cook the pulled pork to 205, so the bone just falls out and the pork falls a part. I am not saying that it does bad pulled pork that way. For me and how I like to eat my cooked meats, I like to have some texture, not chewy, but a little bite to the meat. For me cooking the pork to 205 and letting rest for an hour or so ends up with a mushy over cooked product. I don't like that. Yes, pulling is a bit more time consuming, but not much. In my humble opinion, if you are willing to spend over 8 hrs watching a fire and giving your attention to a product. Why not have it finished properly? From the time I got out of bed to the time I finished with bagging, it was under 45 min. This included removing the pork, cleaning the area up, pulling the pork, inspecting for comp pieces, pictures, bagging and cleaning up the counters. I was never in a hurried pace at any time. And yes the bones were picked clean. Ok that is my side.....
I started with 2 ea picnics weighing 7# each. I removed the skin before cooking (making pellets now for cracklin), so they were at about 5 # after that. The butts started at 21# combined before trimming. I trimmed maybe 3# off (saved for sausage). After cooking I ended up with just under 19# finished product.