WSM pulled pork

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burm1000

Fire Starter
Original poster
Jun 18, 2017
51
145
Salina KS
Smoking an 8lb Boston Butt today on the trusty 18.5 WSM. I'm using sand in the water pan for the first time. So far Temp holding steady around 225. Will put it in a covered pan with apple juice at international temp of 165 degrees.

Used a store bought rub called Fat Boyz on a friends recommendation. Smelled great after being rubbed since yesterday around noon.

Will reheat in a crock pot on the 4th. Also doing pulled chicken on the 4th which is easier to manage the timing of. Work gets in the way Mon/Tues.
 

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Sounds good. You using any wood?
Apple wood chunks. Running a little hotter compared to when I have water in the pan. Temp holding around 245 with one vent closed and two barely open. Topvent is wide open as usual.
 
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Smoking an 8lb Boston Butt today on the trusty 18.5 WSM. I'm using sand in the water pan for the first time. So far Temp holding steady around 225. Will put it in a covered pan with apple juice at international temp of 165 degrees.

Used a store bought rub called Fat Boyz on a friends recommendation. Smelled great after being rubbed since yesterday around noon.

Will reheat in a crock pot on the 4th. Also doing pulled chicken on the 4th which is easier to manage the timing of. Work gets in the way Mon/Tues.


Coming right along. Covered at 165 internal. Bumped temp to 255.
 
IMG_3280.JPG
Smoking an 8lb Boston Butt today on the trusty 18.5 WSM. I'm using sand in the water pan for the first time. So far Temp holding steady around 225. Will put it in a covered pan with apple juice at international temp of 165 degrees.

Used a store bought rub called Fat Boyz on a friends recommendation. Smelled great after being rubbed since yesterday around noon.

Will reheat in a crock pot on the 4th. Also doing pulled chicken on the 4th which is easier to manage the timing of. Work gets in the way Mon/Tues.


I'm going to call it a success. Pulled at 205. The WSM hold steady at 260 for the rest of the smoke. Am I really supposed to wait for the 4th to eat this???
 
Looks outstanding. Couple questions:

#1) Is there a thread or link about using sand instead of water in the pan?
#2) How are you going to keep the pork until Wednesday? Fridge? In tinfoil? Plastic? Or will you freeze?

Thanks

https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/water-versus-sand-in-the-wsm.235043/

I liked the sand seemed to control temp but used less fuel. My sample tasted great. I'll use it again. Easy to clean up as I put tin foil on top of it.

I went with Tupperware in the fridge. Any longer and I would have froze it. When reheating the next day I've used aluminum pans with tin foil.



Looks outstanding. Couple questions:

#1) Is there a thread or link about using sand instead of water in the pan?
#2) How are you going to keep the pork until Wednesday? Fridge? In tinfoil? Plastic? Or will you freeze?

Thanks
 
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Reactions: Sal Barsanti
Thought I'd update my 60lbs pork butt smoke from last weekend. I read through the posts on this thread to help me prepare. After an arduous process of thawing the 6 butts over two days, I finally was ready to smoke last Friday.

You will see in these photos that I should've purchased meat netting or string due to these being bone-less butts. The ends that "hung out" ended up getting over done and I had to discard some of it. Lesson learned.

I used a pepper based rub the night before and a mustard base. Not sure why the mustard shows up on two of these more than the third. i had three on each rack.
pork 20180706_075514.jpg

This was the scene the night before I smoke with 2 gallon bags. All prepped and ready for me early the next morning. I trimmed a lot of fat off of these. Took me a while.
pork 20180705_232341.jpg
 
This was about 2/3 through the smoke. I started spritzing the meat with apple juice. I had the smoker rocking around 7:30am. Meaning, meat was on and going. I had almost everything prepped the night before and ready to go. I used cherry because I have a TON of it that was donated to me last fall. I was able to keep the temps between 225-250 most of the day. It dipped to 200 once for a short time but that was really my only blip. I didn't need to mess with the air vents too much. It was pretty painless. I also decided to keep the water pan empty. No water this time. I was concerned with that much meat on I was never finish.
pork 20180706_145636.jpg


Here is the finished product after a 12hr 45 min smoke. Actually, I did pull the lower rack butts off starting around the 1 hr marker because I forgot the swap the racks half way through. The lower rack finished first.

pork IMG957699.jpg


I let the butts rest for 2-3 hours before I started ripped them apart. Yes, I did some quality control as part of the process. This was late and I was certainly tired after a long day. Good thing I had a lot of good Michigan craft brew to help me out.

pork IMG_4208.jpg


After resting for 2-3 hours, this meat was still hot. Too hot for using my gloved fingers. I relied on my bear claws for assistance.

The pork received rave reviews the next day. I learned that I need to pay more attention once I start serving the meat. Meaning it can dry out in the tin pan/hot plate. The pieces on the bottom got a little dry. I warm up 2 tins of the meat before our event in the oven at low temp. I added a tiny bit of apple juice spritz when I put them in the oven to warm up. Still had them wrapped in tinfoil.

We made a nice homemade bbq sauce that is outstanding. I forgot what it is called. But it is lights out. We also made a homemade coleslaw recipe that works very well with the pork. I think it is a South Carolina type claw? More vinegar based than mayo.

It was so nice to see people enjoying the pork. Everything turned out well and plenty of compliments were offered. Thank you to those who offered tips. Appreciate all of the comments. Please let me know if I can answer any questions regarding this smoke.
 
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