smoking 8 pork shoulders for party in a MES 30 IN.

smokinq13 · Aug 1, 2017

Alright so I have been posting about how we were throwing a surprise party that will be having between 70-85 people. I figured that to be safe I will have to smoke 8 pork shoulders to have enough meat. I was going to do boneless but forgot how much more they were in price! I'm going to be smoking half one day and the other half another, and then the day of the party, I will be just warming the meat up for devouring time, the reason I'm doing half one day and the other half another is because I only have a MES 30 in and I will only be able to fit four in it at a time( I hope I can do at least that).

Here's my math on how I got 8 pork shoulders will be enough, please correct me if you see anything wrong:

so 8 pork shoulders x 10lbs avg. each = 80lbs raw pork shoulder, after trimming off fat and deboning AND smoking you get a 53% return on eating meat( I saw another guy post how he did 30lbs worth of shoulder and got 16lbs of finish product out of it so 16/30=0.5333333 so its a 53% return).. Multiple 80lbs by 53% and you'll get 42.4 lbs. of finished smoked meat after water lose, fat trim and de-boned... We figured that people will eat between 1/4-1/2 lb. sandwiches... so 1/3 is in the middle... take 42.4 and multiple it by 3 = 127.2 sandwiches worth of meat

How's everything lining up so far??

smoking: I like to smoke at a temperature of 250... I'm stuck on either using a 1:1 ratio hickory & apple wood or use my jack Daniels chips... with this much meat should I even spritz or mop( I prefer spritz)?? I figured doing 4 at a time will increase over all smoking time as well

next thing I need to figure out is should I keep them whole and not shred them until I have warmed them up the day of the party? or just go ahead and shred them into big chucks and then put them in the fridge and the day of the party after warming them up, shred them down completely? I figure it would save on moist in the meat if I leave them whole but to have room to store 8 pork shoulders "whole" is going to be quite challenging.

I'm going to have a tin pan to caught all the juices and dripping from them smoking, and I was going to mix them with a little apple juice and add it too the warming meat as well, does that sound good?? Or should I change something with that?

We are going to( I hope) barrow those big electric roaster pans from our church and That's how I'm going to warm up the meat and well everything else.... cough cough 75$ worth of scalloped potatoes

.... that's a story in its own!

please any insight, comments, suggestions.. even if you wanna stop by and just say hi... would be appreciated!

and cause this is a big thing to be doing in a smaller smoker, I definitely will be posting pictures and updating on how its going... we never had hosted this size of an event before so it'll be something new

Sorry for such a long post!

crazymoon · Aug 1, 2017

S13, Sounds like you have your hands full for this smoke ! :) I would shred and save your dripping after cooling to remove the fat and then add that as you reheat. There are some good recipes in the search bar above for finishing sauces that will really add to you PP. Spritzing or mopping if really going to add to your cooking time for each day. keep us in the loop with some pics on your big smoke !

tallbm · Aug 1, 2017

smokinq13 said:
Alright so I have been posting about how we were throwing a surprise party that will be having between 70-85 people. I figured that to be safe I will have to smoke 8 pork shoulders to have enough meat. I was going to do boneless but forgot how much more they were in price! I'm going to be smoking half one day and the other half another, and then the day of the party, I will be just warming the meat up for devouring time, the reason I'm doing half one day and the other half another is because I only have a MES 30 in and I will only be able to fit four in it at a time( I hope I can do at least that).

Here's my math on how I got 8 pork shoulders will be enough, please correct me if you see anything wrong:

so 8 pork shoulders x 10lbs avg. each = 80lbs raw pork shoulder, after trimming off fat and deboning AND smoking you get a 53% return on eating meat( I saw another guy post how he did 30lbs worth of shoulder and got 16lbs of finish product out of it so 16/30=0.5333333 so its a 53% return).. Multiple 80lbs by 53% and you'll get 42.4 lbs. of finished smoked meat after water lose, fat trim and de-boned... We figured that people will eat between 1/4-1/2 lb. sandwiches... so 1/3 is in the middle... take 42.4 and multiple it by 3 = 127.2 sandwiches worth of meat

How's everything lining up so far??

smoking: I like to smoke at a temperature of 250... I'm stuck on either using a 1:1 ratio hickory & apple wood or use my jack Daniels chips... with this much meat should I even spritz or mop( I prefer spritz)?? I figured doing 4 at a time will increase over all smoking time as well

next thing I need to figure out is should I keep them whole and not shred them until I have warmed them up the day of the party? or just go ahead and shred them into big chucks and then put them in the fridge and the day of the party after warming them up, shred them down completely? I figure it would save on moist in the meat if I leave them whole but to have room to store 8 pork shoulders "whole" is going to be quite challenging.

I'm going to have a tin pan to caught all the juices and dripping from them smoking, and I was going to mix them with a little apple juice and add it too the warming meat as well, does that sound good?? Or should I change something with that?

We are going to( I hope) barrow those big electric roaster pans from our church and That's how I'm going to warm up the meat and well everything else.... cough cough 75$ worth of scalloped potatoes

.... that's a story in its own!

please any insight, comments, suggestions.. even if you wanna stop by and just say hi... would be appreciated!

and cause this is a big thing to be doing in a smaller smoker, I definitely will be posting pictures and updating on how its going... we never had hosted this size of an event before so it'll be something new

Sorry for such a long post!

Hi there and welcome!

Hmmm I haven't done that much before BUT I do prefer to smoke and have big cuts of meat ready the day before a party so I CAN help with info there.

1. No need to mop or spritz, it will only add time and is not a necessary step.

2. Your best results would be to reheat the entire roast and pull the meat the next day but that may not be practical to try and reheat and pull 8 butts the day of unless you have help. I fear you will at least have to pull the first half and store and then the next day you could maybe left the 2nd half whole and then pull the day of. This way you could mix both and kind get the best of both worlds.

If you have a reliable vacuum sealer and a roll of bags you can cut to length this may be a great way to be able to pull all the pork, immediately bag and seal in big long vacuum bags. You would lock in the juice that way for sure.

3. If you double foil your butts at about 165F you can lock in juice so no need to spritz or mop AND they will be ready to reheat in the oven if reheating whole and pulling the day off. Additionally if you want to save time you can smoke to 165F, double foil and then transfer to an oven. you can then pop your next set of pork buts in the smoker and continue smoking. This has you overlapping your cook time to some extent :)

I hope all of these ideas help you determine a game plan and I wish you the best of luck :)

smokinq13 · Aug 1, 2017

TallBM said:
Hi there and welcome!

Hmmm I haven't done that much before BUT I do prefer to smoke and have big cuts of meat ready the day before a party so I CAN help with info there.

1. No need to mop or spritz, it will only add time and is not a necessary step.

2. Your best results would be to reheat the entire roast and pull the meat the next day but that may not be practical to try and reheat and pull 8 butts the day of unless you have help. I fear you will at least have to pull the first half and store and then the next day you could maybe left the 2nd half whole and then pull the day of. This way you could mix both and kind get the best of both worlds.

If you have a reliable vacuum sealer and a roll of bags you can cut to length this may be a great way to be able to pull all the pork, immediately bag and seal in big long vacuum bags. You would lock in the juice that way for sure.

3. If you double foil your butts at about 165F you can lock in juice so no need to spritz or mop AND they will be ready to reheat in the oven if reheating whole and pulling the day off. Additionally if you want to save time you can smoke to 165F, double foil and then transfer to an oven. you can then pop your next set of pork buts in the smoker and continue smoking. This has you overlapping your cook time to some extent :)

I hope all of these ideas help you determine a game plan and I wish you the best of luck :)

finishing in the oven sounds like a great idea! thanks for suggesting that! I figured that with 4 8-10lb shoulders I was looking at around 20 hours for each smoke run! About the vacuum sealer idea... I thought of this but thought that this would cost a lot due to the fact that the roll of bags arn't cheap... do they make vacuum bags big enough to fit a whole shoulder in?? I won't really have help shredding the meat so I think I'm just going to let the shoulders cool down after smoking/cooking, debone and shred them to at least big chucks to store into more convenient containers/ bags.

I know I shouldn't spritz, but I'm the type of guy that feels like I should at least do it once an hour or so... you think I could get better bark with spritzing or just don't do anything to them? I got a new injection recipe that has apple cider in it... can I at least inject them? lol anyways have to be doing something...

smokinq13 · Aug 1, 2017

CrazyMoon said:
S13, Sounds like you have your hands full for this smoke ! :) I would shred and save your dripping after cooling to remove the fat and then add that as you reheat. There are some good recipes in the search bar above for finishing sauces that will really add to you PP. Spritzing or mopping if really going to add to your cooking time for each day. keep us in the loop with some pics on your big smoke !

definitely going to save the drippings!... thanks for mentioning about removing the fat from it by letting it cool, you think I should add some apple juice or apple cider to the drippings before adding it to the PP??? or just use straight drippings... and Its going to be hard for me not to spritz them, I feel like I'm obligated to do so, you think I can still get a good bark even if I don't spritz them in my MES30?? I also was thinking of doing a finishing sauce but the people that will be eating it are the type that thinks a pork loin in a Crooke Pot with a bottle of BBQ sauce is "real pulled pork" ( not trying to judge or talk bad about anyone) so I don't think I'll need a finishing sauce... we're going to have a couple bottles of Sweet Baby Rays for them to put on the PP if they desire it.

tallbm · Aug 1, 2017

smokinq13 said:
finishing in the oven sounds like a great idea! thanks for suggesting that! I figured that with 4 8-10lb shoulders I was looking at around 20 hours for each smoke run! About the vacuum sealer idea... I thought of this but thought that this would cost a lot due to the fact that the roll of bags arn't cheap... do they make vacuum bags big enough to fit a whole shoulder in?? I won't really have help shredding the meat so I think I'm just going to let the shoulders cool down after smoking/cooking, debone and shred them to at least big chucks to store into more convenient containers/ bags.

I know I shouldn't spritz, but I'm the type of guy that feels like I should at least do it once an hour or so... you think I could get better bark with spritzing or just don't do anything to them? I got a new injection recipe that has apple cider in it... can I at least inject them? lol anyways have to be doing something...

I don't think there are any pre-cut bag options that would fit a whole butt, though a chunked up or pulled shredded portion of a butt would not be an issue, you would just use as many pre-cut bags as it takes.

Spritzing does the opposite of providing bark :) You need some dryness for bark to happen.

Also, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but if you are storing these butts in a wrapped fashion, or wrapping and transfering to the oven you can kiss any heavy or plentiful bark goodbye. You will still have bark but if you are a guy that loves a lot of bark you are going to be hosed by the nature of wrapping, storing, reheating wrapped, etc. etc. etc.

Your biggest enemy for success on this adventure is losing moisture/juice and serving dry pulled pork.

All of the things you will end up doing to retain moisture/juice will unfortunately work against you when it comes to having lots of bark.

I personally would rather have juicy flavorful pulled pork with light bark over good bark and dry pulled pork. To me it is no contest.

I don't know what injecting will buy you in the end, but I don't think it will add to the bark situation getting better lol. I'm all for it if it helps with juiciness :)

I would imagine that the best way for you to get bark and juicyness would be to smoke uncovered as long as you can/want and then wrap tight with double foil and transfer to the oven. This way you introduce no more moisture than you need and you hang on to as much bark as possible.

With 8 butts you could always experiment. Do 2 injected, 2 plain, 2 longer unwrapped for heavy bark, 2 spritzed, and the final 2 whichever way turned out best from the 1st run hahaha. They sky's the limit :D

smokinq13 · Aug 1, 2017

TallBM said:
I don't think there are any pre-cut bag options that would fit a whole butt, though a chunked up or pulled shredded portion of a butt would not be an issue, you would just use as many pre-cut bags as it takes.

Spritzing does the opposite of providing bark :) You need some dryness for bark to happen.

Also, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but if you are storing these butts in a wrapped fashion, or wrapping and transfering to the oven you can kiss any heavy or plentiful bark goodbye. You will still have bark but if you are a guy that loves a lot of bark you are going to be hosed by the nature of wrapping, storing, reheating wrapped, etc. etc. etc.

Your biggest enemy for success on this adventure is losing moisture/juice and serving dry pulled pork.

All of the things you will end up doing to retain moisture/juice will unfortunately work against you when it comes to having lots of bark.

I personally would rather have juicy flavorful pulled pork with light bark over good bark and dry pulled pork. To me it is no contest.

I don't know what injecting will buy you in the end, but I don't think it will add to the bark situation getting better lol. I'm all for it if it helps with juiciness :)

I would imagine that the best way for you to get bark and juicyness would be to smoke uncovered as long as you can/want and then wrap tight with double foil and transfer to the oven. This way you introduce no more moisture than you need and you hang on to as much bark as possible.

With 8 butts you could always experiment. Do 2 injected, 2 plain, 2 longer unwrapped for heavy bark, 2 spritzed, and the final 2 whichever way turned out best from the 1st run hahaha. They sky's the limit :D

I thought that spritzing helps with bark, due to the fact of the added sugars to the outside "burning"? I just like the bark because it gives it that classic REAL BBQ look....but I agree with you! having juicy not dry pulled pork is the main concern with these... especially since I will be reheating them!... and I believe that injecting them would help with moisture... the only reason I mentioned it was because I found a new recipe and wanted to try it out lol... I'm actually doing one this Friday( i'll be doing the actual "8" shoulders next week) but this Friday can be my test run!

tallbm · Aug 1, 2017

smokinq13 said:
I thought that spritzing helps with bark, due to the fact of the added sugars to the outside "burning"? I just like the bark because it gives it that classic REAL BBQ look....but I agree with you! having juicy not dry pulled pork is the main concern with these... especially since I will be reheating them!... and I believe that injecting them would help with moisture... the only reason I mentioned it was because I found a new recipe and wanted to try it out lol... I'm actually doing one this Friday( i'll be doing the actual "8" shoulders next week) but this Friday can be my test run!

All I've ever known or read concerning spritzing is that it hurts bark, but I will defer to any bark experts that want to chime in on the topic lol.

Oh another tip, make sure you that when you are reheating you get to 165-170F before attempting to pull the meat. I read somewhere a guy mention 145F for warming and pulling so I tried it and no go. I then had broke my wonderful double layer foil wrap and put it together as best I could to continue reheating but I lost a lot more moisture/juice than I care to lose as I warmed up to the 165-175F temp I needed for pulling :(

I won't ever make that gamble again but hey I didn't know if it was true so I tried it and learned it was not true for me hahaha :)

I have no qualms with injecting, feel free to try it this Friday and see what happens. I would love to hear about what you find :)

Oh before I forget, another thing I do that may help in your case is smoking at 275F. It doesn't hurt the pork butt at all, may give you more bark, and will speed up your cook time as well.

smokinq13 · Aug 1, 2017

TallBM said:
All I've ever known or read concerning spritzing is that it hurts bark, but I will defer to any bark experts that want to chime in on the topic lol.

Oh another tip, make sure you that when you are reheating you get to 165-170F before attempting to pull the meat. I read somewhere a guy mention 145F for warming and pulling so I tried it and no go. I then had broke my wonderful double layer foil wrap and put it together as best I could to continue reheating but I lost a lot more moisture/juice than I care to lose as I warmed up to the 165-175F temp I needed for pulling :(

I won't ever make that gamble again but hey I didn't know if it was true so I tried it and learned it was not true for me hahaha :)

I have no qualms with injecting, feel free to try it this Friday and see what happens. I would love to hear about what you find :)

Oh before I forget, another thing I do that may help in your case is smoking at 275F. It doesn't hurt the pork butt at all, may give you more bark, and will speed up your cook time as well.

This is why i come to you guys! I never would have thought of what tempture to pull the meat at...but i do have a question then... since it will be pulled into big chucks and not left whole , does this still have a role?? Or you can even make the chucks dry out? And i was even thinking about raising my temp to 275( thats all the further it'll go)

tallbm · Aug 1, 2017

smokinq13 said:
This is why i come to you guys! I never would have thought of what tempture to pull the meat at...but i do have a question then... since it will be pulled into big chucks and not left whole , does this still have a role?? Or you can even make the chucks dry out? And i was even thinking about raising my temp to 275( thats all the further it'll go)

I assume the bigger the chunk the more moisture/juice that is retained in the chunk. This is the same concept as waiting to cut your steaks off the whole roast or cooking something whole and then slicing afterwards like Fajitas. The chunks can also dry out. The more whole/complete the met the juicier it should be.

I would imagine that if you cut up the butts into quarters and vac sealed them, you would kind of get the best of the situation. You would have big chunks plus the vac seal to avoid losing juice/moisture.

As for 275F, I'm positive the butts can handle it, no need to baby them with a lower temp. Especially considering your situation of having to do so many :)

smokinq13 · Aug 2, 2017

TallBM said:
I assume the bigger the chunk the more moisture/juice that is retained in the chunk. This is the same concept as waiting to cut your steaks off the whole roast or cooking something whole and then slicing afterwards like Fajitas. The chunks can also dry out. The more whole/complete the met the juicier it should be.

I would imagine that if you cut up the butts into quarters and vac sealed them, you would kind of get the best of the situation. You would have big chunks plus the vac seal to avoid losing juice/moisture.

As for 275F, I'm positive the butts can handle it, no need to baby them with a lower temp. Especially considering your situation of having to do so many :)

I probably wont use vacuum bags but I got 2 gallon zip lock bags( which I can squeeze the air out as much as I can, I'll probably just chuck the meat up and stuff as much of it in the bags as possibly. Now what temperature would you say I should wait to chuck the shoulders at to stuff in the bags, I know I've done butts before and had them resting wrap in foil for more than three hours and they're still steaming hot when I went to shred them? EDITED*** i might actually go get some XL ziploc bags 5 or 10 gallon size, i feel like they would work better than muitple 2 gallon bags

tallbm · Aug 2, 2017

smokinq13 said:
I probably wont use vacuum bags but I got 2 gallon zip lock bags( which I can squeeze the air out as much as I can, I'll probably just chuck the meat up and stuff as much of it in the bags as possibly. Now what temperature would you say I should wait to chuck the shoulders at to stuff in the bags, I know I've done butts before and had them resting wrap in foil for more than three hours and they're still steaming hot when I went to shred them? EDITED*** i might actually go get some XL ziploc bags 5 or 10 gallon size, i feel like they would work better than muitple 2 gallon bags

Oh man I'm not sure. I'm just guessing but I would wait until they hit 145F. I say this because of 2 reasons:

1. The juices will have redistrubted throughout the whole pork butt

2. When I tried to pull at 145F it wasn't happening, so my thought is that this should keep more of your meat intact as junks and thereby keep the juice and juicy tissue inside the chunks

This is all speculation but I am basing it on educated guessing from pork butt behavior I've encountered while reheating.

Any bag should work, just try and squeeze some air out lol.

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smoking 8 pork shoulders for party in a MES 30 IN.

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