- Apr 8, 2016
- 15
- 17
Smoked pulled pork for the second time (first attempt can be read here) for Memorial Day weekend. It was the second PP but my first time doing multiple butts. As I intend to do with all of my posts, I try to highlight my smoking process and share lessons learned. For me it's all about progress, so any feedback would be much appreciated.
5/24/2016
2016 Traeger Texas Elite 34
Prep time: 12 hours
Smoke time: 16.9 hours
Rest time: 6 hours
Total time: 34.9 hours
Outside temp: 64F
Pit temp: 250F
Target IT: 205F
Process:
Butts when first loaded into the pit
Butts when I pulled them out of the pit
Close up!
Got an excellent bark and nice smoke ring
Before adding the Lex dip
Finished product, with some Memphis style sauce!
Uploaded my iGrill2 data into excel to plot cook duration and see if I could "model" my cook with an equation, to help more accurately predict finishing times in the future. I used both linear and 6th degree polynomial trend lines.
Lessons learned:
5/24/2016
2016 Traeger Texas Elite 34
Prep time: 12 hours
Smoke time: 16.9 hours
Rest time: 6 hours
Total time: 34.9 hours
Outside temp: 64F
Pit temp: 250F
Target IT: 205F
Process:
- Prepped two 9 lb bone-in Boston butt overnight with generous layer of Carolina mustard sauce followed by "house" rub.
- Placed pork in smoker at 250F at 6:30PM using Cookin Pellets Perfect Mix.
- Inserted meat probe at 11:30PM, showing 118F.
- At 2:45AM hit stall IT of 160F for ~2.4 hours.
- Removed from smoker at 1:00PM (IT creeped up to 209F on me).
- Wrapped butts in heavy duty aluminum foil, placed in cooler for ~6 hours.
- Around 6:30PM, pulled pork (which was still piping hot) and coated liberally with Lexington dip sauce.
- Enjoyed with family (and beer) !
Butts when first loaded into the pit
Butts when I pulled them out of the pit
Close up!
Got an excellent bark and nice smoke ring
Before adding the Lex dip
Finished product, with some Memphis style sauce!
Uploaded my iGrill2 data into excel to plot cook duration and see if I could "model" my cook with an equation, to help more accurately predict finishing times in the future. I used both linear and 6th degree polynomial trend lines.
Lessons learned:
- Used 2 hour / # estimate this time, and it came out pretty spot on. Technically it ended up being 1.88 hours / #.
- Two butts didn't take any noticeably longer to cook than my first attempt, although I did end up cooking at 250F this round.
- No spritz this time, but didn't notice much of a difference. Probably will continue to omit in the future since it is time consuming.
- Used ~25 # of pellets over 16.9 hours, or 1.5 # / hr for two butts.