Part two will be next Sunday, when I'll be doing a repeat of some of this for my mother's birthday.
For today... we just decided to invite our 4 closest neighbors over for dinner tonight. Unfortunately, it looks like my pork shoulder/butt is going to be done WAY WAY WAY too early today. We're not supposed to eat until about 6, but it's going to be done in the next couple of hours (it's not quite 10AM right now). Pork butts cook differently every time, so I've heard, but I was worried and didn't want to be running short and be forced to rely on the Texas Crutch to pull off the finish by dinnertime. This is an effective method, but it does have some downsides, especially if you're a bark-junkie.
So, last time (my first butt on Pork Tuesday), I had a butt that was around 6.8 pounds and needed very very little trimming. I ended up cooking it right at 12h or 12h15m or something. Pulled at temp of 203F as recommended by Meathead at AmazingRibs.com and it was absolutely PERFECT.
This time, I got a butt that was over 10 lbs, trimmed maybe a 1/2 lb or so. Someone here mentioned their last butt was 9 lbs and took 23 hours, so I was worried... my 6-lb'er took 2 hours per pound, so I wanted to make certain I had enough time to finish this 10-lb'er. I rubbed it up, wrapped in plastic wrap and put it back in fridge for an hour or so, then popped it in the smoker at 225-240 overnight starting about 1:00AM. It's now 9:53AM, and my Maverick ET-372 is reading 196F. 9 hours and she's almost done, in spite of being around 50% larger. <sigh>
So the butt's gonna be way early - probably too early, even, for the faux cambro to do me much good. However, that will leave plenty of room for the racks of ribs and armadillo eggs I'm going to be throwing on this afternoon.
It's kinda the same song, different verse, really... I feel like I'm posting the same pictures over and over again, although it's different episodes.
So here's where I'm at for this morning, so far. I'll post some pics up of the ribs and 'dillo eggs later on.
More to come...
For today... we just decided to invite our 4 closest neighbors over for dinner tonight. Unfortunately, it looks like my pork shoulder/butt is going to be done WAY WAY WAY too early today. We're not supposed to eat until about 6, but it's going to be done in the next couple of hours (it's not quite 10AM right now). Pork butts cook differently every time, so I've heard, but I was worried and didn't want to be running short and be forced to rely on the Texas Crutch to pull off the finish by dinnertime. This is an effective method, but it does have some downsides, especially if you're a bark-junkie.
So, last time (my first butt on Pork Tuesday), I had a butt that was around 6.8 pounds and needed very very little trimming. I ended up cooking it right at 12h or 12h15m or something. Pulled at temp of 203F as recommended by Meathead at AmazingRibs.com and it was absolutely PERFECT.
This time, I got a butt that was over 10 lbs, trimmed maybe a 1/2 lb or so. Someone here mentioned their last butt was 9 lbs and took 23 hours, so I was worried... my 6-lb'er took 2 hours per pound, so I wanted to make certain I had enough time to finish this 10-lb'er. I rubbed it up, wrapped in plastic wrap and put it back in fridge for an hour or so, then popped it in the smoker at 225-240 overnight starting about 1:00AM. It's now 9:53AM, and my Maverick ET-372 is reading 196F. 9 hours and she's almost done, in spite of being around 50% larger. <sigh>
So the butt's gonna be way early - probably too early, even, for the faux cambro to do me much good. However, that will leave plenty of room for the racks of ribs and armadillo eggs I'm going to be throwing on this afternoon.
It's kinda the same song, different verse, really... I feel like I'm posting the same pictures over and over again, although it's different episodes.
So here's where I'm at for this morning, so far. I'll post some pics up of the ribs and 'dillo eggs later on.
More to come...
