Pulled Pork takes soooooooo long!!!

[AndyHull]

Hi all, did my third boneless pulled pork shoulder yesterday, it was bigger than the last one but not by much.
I put it on the grill (OTP 57cm) at 11:40am and by 9pm it wasn't done it had reached 169.7f at which point i moved it to the house oven set at 150c which then took until 10:20ish to get to the magical 195f.
I have had to do this with all 3 pork shoulders as they have all taken sooooooo long to cook.

The grill was running at 225f to 275f using the snake method and i hardly lifted the lid unless it began to drop in temp after around 5hrs to add more charcoal.
I didn't have any foil otherwise i would have wrapped it but even with a stall surely it shouldn't have taken this long?

Andy

[Pooky]

I'm no great expert, but the stall can be very unpredictable - Plateaus, drops, slow rises and can last a ridiculous and unpredictable amount of time. Every Shoulder is different, producing varying levels of moisture.

I cooked my first wrapped pork shoulder on Saturday and I was amazed by how quickly and steadily the temperature rose, once I'd foiled it.

My cook took 8 hours at 250F + 1hour resting.

You do lose a bit of bark integrity, but it was still pretty good!

[grillfisher]

Try foiling it next time - could of course have been just bad luck, but I'm pretty sure it will go faster with foil.

[Toffer]

What weight was the shoulder? That doesn't seem a long cook unless the shoulder was fairly small?

I usually buy a 6-7kg shoulder with the bone left in. I normally put this on the grill at midnight on a Saturday/Sunday and this then cooks right through the night. Usually by around 16:00 the next day it's reached 90˚C so that's a 16 hour cook.

I love cooking pulled pork from a shoulder as it's incredibly hard to bugger up. You can foil it, put it in a cool box and let it rest for 3-5 hours and it's still lovely and hot and juicy when you pull it. It's very forgiving and very tasty!

[AndyHull]

That's a big shoulder in comparison to the 2kg ones I cook
I have a 3kg approximate shoulder that I rubbed last week in the freezer as I read that if you freeze them after rubbing the rub penetrates deeper whilst defrosting, we'll see!

I also have foil to help me through the stall this time too but I'm waiting on my thermometer as I melted the cable on my last one
I have made myself an aluminium ring (6mm aluminium chequer plate) that sits inside the kettle with a divider so that I can now have charcoal ring/snake all the way round the outside of the grill, using his new piece if kit I have managed a 250f consistent burn for 5 hrs and only used 1/3rd of the coals I put in, I also had a house brick in the centre instead of a water pan as my temperature stabiliser and it seemed to work a treat!
This was for 2 racks of ribs that where the best I have ever done!
Anyhow, I will be cooking the next shoulder in a week or 2 and will post on how it goes, I'll take some pics again too and hopefully get them on one way or another.

Andy

[newbie]

intersting, any chance of a photo of your set up andy when you do your next one?


newb's.

[Smoky Joe]

Andy

I have to say what I do is smoke the Butt for about 8 hours at 225F and then I rap it. At that point this will then become an oven. After that I put the heat right up for the last 4 hours. The bark wont be amazing but after 8 hours or smoking the smoke ring will be good and then that last 4 hours at full heat pushes it through a stall and you should have great pulled pork.

Gav

[AndyHull]

Andy

I have to say what I do is smoke the Butt for about 8 hours at 225F and then I rap it. At that point this will then become an oven. After that I put the heat right up for the last 4 hours. The bark wont be amazing but after 8 hours or smoking the smoke ring will be good and then that last 4 hours at full heat pushes it through a stall and you should have great pulled pork.

Gav

I like the sound of this Gav, I'll try it next time I do pulled pork which should be in a week or two.
So do you just open your vents up all the way?

Andy

[Smoky Joe]

Hi Andy

Yes I just open up all the vents and let it do its magic. Tell me if all works out.

Gav

[AndyHull]

Will do Gav,

Thanks again

Andy