Gonna try a fast cook of pork shoulder...

[tallbm]

Thank you! Yes, learning a bit more about the stall - not something I've seen much, as this was my second pulled pork run, I've only done one brisket, and one attempt at poor man's burnt ends.

I've been experimenting with a few different things each time (injection vs just rub, fat up vs down, low temp vs higher temp), and getting a bit more comfortable with how to deal with time variations - lots of great pointers from folks.

I do want to give a try at a 300˚F cook, and then try to settle on a method for pulled pork, so I can refine it.

For sure, it's WAY better than what we used to do, using a crock pot and store bought BBQ sauce.

Oh yeah you are definitely on the journey now. Many of us have been on that path before, so enjoy the tinkering!!! :D

With your next pork butt attempt at 300F, a good approach to consider as a baseline. Would be to season up, do your time estimate guesstimating the time per pound at 300F, then throw on the smoker and not do anything until the temp probe tells you to check for tenderness (about 203-205F). Well maybe one check at about an IT of 190F just to ensure nothing odd is happening, but remember. If you are lookin you're not cookin :D
I would wager a guess to say your bark comes out better and the time management becomes clear at that weight for that time it takes before it reports to test for tenderness.

If you want more bark and flavor to the point where you eliminate the need for finishing sauce or additional seasoning that could be worked in easily as well but that involves 1 more meat prep step.

I think you are 1-2 pulled pork cooks away from eliminating mysteries and then maybe 1-2 cooks after that will nail in your seasoning, bark, and standardize your approach for complete consistency.

 

[paleoman]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I've been very good at not looking, and just going by what the probes report. On this run, I opened two times. Once at 9 hours to see how the bark was forming from the overnight run, and then very near the end (~13 hours, when one probe hit 205˚F, while the other was 195˚F) to probe for doneness and adjust the one probe.

I did like the bark better with the previous shoulder I did. On that one, I did an injection, cross cut the fat cap, and cooked it fat cap up versus down. You mentioned about doing an additional prep step. Can you elaborate?

 

[tallbm]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I've been very good at not looking, and just going by what the probes report. On this run, I opened two times. Once at 9 hours to see how the bark was forming from the overnight run, and then very near the end (~13 hours, when one probe hit 205˚F, while the other was 195˚F) to probe for doneness and adjust the one probe.

I did like the bark better with the previous shoulder I did. On that one, I did an injection, cross cut the fat cap, and cooked it fat cap up versus down. You mentioned about doing an additional prep step. Can you elaborate?

Yeah basically lay the pork butt on a cutting board, fat side down.
Cut like you are going to cut it in half but when you hit the bone basically stop and only have it cut to where you can easily kind of butterfly it out a bit.
Season all up in there and when you smoke it make sure and pull it apart and set it so it is sitting kind of butterflied out.

Now you get bark, smoke, and seasoning all up in there due to more surface area where if it was hole that center meat would get none of that leaving it less flavorful.
This fixed my need for more flavor, additional seasoning once pulled, or need for finishing sauce. It perfected things. I posted a little about it here:

Butterflied Pork Butt (or Pork Butt Butt)

Well a few weekends ago I did 2 pork butts at 17.5 pounds total. I butterflied them so that the pork butts were more like butts hahaha. The reason I did this was to: get more seasoning on the meat for flavor get more bark because there was now more surface area get more smoke flavor and...

www.smokingmeatforums.com

It's really a simple prep thing that has amazing results.