Smoking my first butt today

[mtuck]

I have some out of town family coming tomorrow and I thought I would test my luck and smoke my first butt for them. I'm hoping to have a beautiful pile of pulled pork but I also have 4 racks of ribs that I will smoke tomorrow as backup and supplement.

I'm using Bearcarver's Step by Step guide found here: https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/boston-butt-pulled-pork-step-by-step.140055/

Here's the butt in raw form last night:


Dusted with a nice coat of Jeff's Original BBQ Rub:


After resting in the fridge overnight and another light dusting of rub, it's ready for the smoker:

 

[mtuck]

It's been about 10 hours and I've hit a hard stall around 155. I decided to put the butt in a pan with some apple juice and sealed it up with foil. Looks like it might be a late night.

Here it is before getting sealed with foil:

 

[KrisUpInSmoke]

Looks good so far.

Looks like you're cooking it in a pan in its fat. Any reason you didn't cook it on a rack up out of the fat?

How many pounds is it? How long did it smoke before and at what internal temp did you wrap?

 

[mtuck]

Looks good so far.

Looks like you're cooking it in a pan in its fat. Any reason you didn't cook it on a rack up out of the fat?

How many pounds is it? How long did it smoke before and at what internal temp did you wrap?

It's 8.26lbs. I smoked it on the rack for the for almost 10 hours. It hit a hard stall at 155 so I decided to wrap. I had the pan on the rack below to catch the drippings. I added the butt to pan (with some drippings) along with some apple juice and wrapped it up tight. It's now moving past the stall.

 

[mtuck]

Hit 203 at exactly 14 hours. Cut the heat down to 100 and letting it rest inside the smoker. I'll pull it out in a hour or so and see how it came out.

 

[Meat Man Matt]

Looks like it was cooking nicely in that last pic. I trust it turned out well?
8+ pounds hitting a stall around 9-10 hrs sounds about right to me, nothing wrong with wrapping there. What temp were you cooking at and what internal temp did you end up pulling it at?

Also, your probe doesn't appear to be all the way in, hope it didn't throw off your temps too much.

Either way, it looks great! Hope it tasted great too!

 

[SmokinAl]

So how did it turn out?
It sure looks good in that last photo!
Al

 

[mtuck]

Looks like it was cooking nicely in that last pic. I trust it turned out well?
8+ pounds hitting a stall around 9-10 hrs sounds about right to me, nothing wrong with wrapping there. What temp were you cooking at and what internal temp did you end up pulling it at?

Also, your probe doesn't appear to be all the way in, hope it didn't throw off your temps too much.

Either way, it looks great! Hope it tasted great too!

I was cooking at 240 for the first 10 hours; after I wrapped, I kicked it up to 250.

Nice pickup on the probe. I was fully inserted during the initial smoke, it got pulled back some when I took it out of the smoker. The probe was relocated deep into the middle and away from the bone during the wrapped cooking.

I turned the temp down to 100 when it hit 203. I let it sit in the 100 degree smoker for about 2 hours, it coasted to 206. After 2 hours of resting, I took it out and pulled it.

Transferred to a separate pan for pulling and the bone just fell right out. I had a little 1:00 am snack with my 18 year old son and then put it to bed in the fridge waiting for today's party. I forgot to grab a picture of the pulled meat but here's a shot of the butt with the bone sitting next to it.

 

[mtuck]

So how did it turn out?
It sure looks good in that last photo!
Al

The sample I had last night was fantastic. We'll see what everyone else thinks later today.