Cooking pulled pork

[YetiDave]

If you can, I'd try learning more by the feel rather than time or temp. Use temp as a guide, but when it's ready to be pulled a skewer should be able to push into the meat with very little resistance. Think hot knife through butter. The meat will be very soft once it's ready

[JEC]

A.

I don't have a lot of experience in this area, but I've had the same problem a few times with pork being tender but not able to be pulled.

I think my main problem was too much relience on cooking time, not enough on internal temperature of the pork. For a good result I've found that I need to aim for an internal temperature of at least 195F and probably a bit higher ideally. The cooking time has varied too much between different cuts to be a reliable indicator of when it's ready.

As I understand it, you'll find the temperature of the meat stalls around 150-170 for a good few hours and the foil can help speed up the cooking. I haven't treid this though.

Correct on the stall temperature and foil does really help to speed this up, although it does soften the bark. I aim for 200 to 205, ideally 203 but that's my OCD That said the temperature is just a guide, if you put a fork in the side and it doesn't turn easily it needs to go on for a bit longer, this is when the foil can help to prevent it from drying out

[Altissimus]

Thanks all great advice here

[Tiny]

Right chaps,
On holiday for a fortnight and may have tickled a glass more of wine than is prudent so if I go a touch ribald forgive me.......

Right, to foil or not to foil? foil, it may well soften the bark a touch but unless you are going to snatch it off the smoker and gnaw it like oprah on a baked ham it makes no difference at all. Most rest pork butts wrapped and so you should, this will steam and soften any glacier like bark you have created. most then pull and dress with juices and or bbq sauce again this will soften the mirror like glass crust the non foilers claim they create. So in summary unless you see eating the bark sounding like you are chowing down on an bowl of crunchy nut cornflakes then foil my old chaps foil.


BBQ is an wonderful endeavour but you have to watch that the spirit of the game is notlost in the pedantry of "if it reaches 206 F then it will be ruined, it will be like eating pork related cotton wool" true it may well not win you GC at an BBQS event but it will still be bloody good pulled pork.....so relax smoke and enjoy
Cheers
Tiny

[YetiDave]

Have you foil supporters tried unfoiled?

Foiling to rest certainly softens the bark some, but not nearly as much as cooking in foil for a couple of hours. I've never found bark to be crunchy, but certainly unfoiled gives a more jerky-like crust

[DJBenz]

My usual pork smoking goes as follows:

1. Fire up the smoker.
2. Rub the meat while the smoker gets warmed up.
3. Add the meat to the grill, with a probe thermometer.
4. When the meat gets to about 75°C internal (or when it seems to have stopped climbing) foil it.
5. Leave until the internal temp is 100°C
6. Take off (still in foil), wrap in towel, place in cool bag and rest for 1 hour.

It's never failed me yet and the meat pulls perfectly every time. I use the 2.5kg bone in pork shoulders from Tesco.

[RobinC]

I largely cook unfoiled then rest in foil for a couple of hours. I'm not particularly passionate on whether it should or shouldn't be foiled. I tend to cook unfoiled more out of habit because I am more familiar with the cook time that way. I have cooked foiled a few times particularly if I've got a butt that is proving extremely stubborn getting through the stall. I'd agree with comments about aiming for a particular doneness rather than an internal temp.

[somapop]

Are you folks ramping the cooking temp up now - 225f seems to be the standard low n slow, but from what I've been reading of late, cooking it higher (and for a shorter period) should produce the same results?
This would be ideal for me in a lot of respects (time!).
For a 1.5kg piece of pork would 3-4 hours at 300-350f (then rest in foil for an hour or so) be a good starting point (looking at an internal temp of 190f)?
I'm a bit in the dark at the moment as I'm not cooking yet (until I finish the UDS build off next week) but if I can be as prepared as possible...

Cheers.

[RobinC]

My WSMs tend to settle in the region of 250-270 so that's what I cook at. Though I use a thermometer I don't cook to internal temp I go on whether the therm inserts easily into the butt. I use temp as a guide for when to start checking for doneness. Most of mine have been "done" at above 190f though. Very rough rule of thumb for the temps I cook at is something like 90 to 105mins per 1 llb. This is without foiling.

[JEC]

I cook naked and at 300 to 350 most of the time now.