Pulled pork advice

[marna]

Hi there! I need your help please!

I am planning to pull a pork this weekend, and have invited lots of people over to help me eat it. I'll be feeding about 20 - 30 people I think. I'll be grilling plenty of kebabs and burgers too, and there'll be lots of salad/veg/bread/sides, so people won't be existing JUST on the pork. So! At an estimate of 100g meat per person, let's say we want 3kg pulled pork? (Or is that not nearly enough?)Will a 5/6kg shoulder give me that, allowing for bone and moisture loss? Or should I go bigger/ go for two smaller ones? I have no freezer yet, so my usual party-catering trick of cook double, freeze the leftovers doesn't work.

Timing-wise; I have no oven (yet) - just a little propane hob - so reheating is complicated. I want to start serving at 3pm-ish - the pork will need to come off for some resting at 2pm anyway. So, am i better off cooking it the day before (with no time constraints), leaving it overnight on the side/ in the fridge, and giving it a second blast the next day? Or is this something better done all in one go (in which case it's something like a 5am start for lucky me!)

Thanks for all your help!

[slatts]

Hi

I did a 4kg shoulder before I took the skin off and trimmed it up, bone in. Must of got 30-40 rolls, I have some very large friends that ate big rolls and a few of them lol. From what I remember it was a 12-13hr overnight cook with an hour atleast to rest in the cool box.

Friday night I put 2x 2.6kg shoulders on the smoker at 11.30pm and took them off at 11.30am and left them foiled with a towel over them in a cooler, they stayed there till 2.30pm and pulled perfectly and still hot.

If you put it on early you can keep it hot in the cooler for a good 2-3 hours.

Good luck with it all

[marna]

I would love to leave it running all night, but I don't have a proper smoker - just a Weber kettle creature. And a proper smoker won't be happening before next summer.

I don't want to stay up all night tending the beast because it's boatwarming BBQ day the next day, and I want to be bright and sunny for all my guests. (Plus, I have a huge pile of other food to prep and a toilet to install this weekend, pre-party. I don't want to end up a zombie!)

Do you think it's safe/ sensible to leave a Weber OTP running all night alone? I think I'd rather leave do the bulk of the pork-cooking the day before and just finish it off the next morning. Or get up early and do it a little hotter. But I'm not sure how the cooling/ reheating will affect the meat?

[aris]

You could do the first 4-5 hours in the OTP so it gets the smoke, and then finish it off in the oven.

[JamsCowbell]

The problem with pulled pork is that no-matter how big the shoulder is, if you do it right IT ALL DISAPPEARS!

I've never had any leftovers, even with more pork and less guests, they just keep coming back for more... even some supposed veggies

If you want to fit it into a tight time frame and you want sleep/don't want to tend the kettle then I'd go down the smoke it first oven it later route that aris suggested. Failing that you could try a turbo butt, I've seen that mentioned on here, albeit mostly for BGE users.

I've never tried to keep my kettle down at low & slow temps, I've only roasted lamb at 200C in there, it was lovely though!

I think the most important part of a shoulder is the finishing temperature and then the resting. I generally aim for it to be finished a few hours before it's needed, then when it comes out (at a minimum of 89C and a maximum of 93C) I wrap it in two layers of foil and then a towel before stuffing it in a picnic cooler box for at least a couple of hours. After that you have a lovely smelling towel and a shoulder ready for pulling

[keith157]

You could do the first 4-5 hours in the OTP so it gets the smoke, and then finish it off in the oven.

Only problem is aris he states he doesn't yet have an oven just a small propane hob...

[marna]

Yeah - sadly oven-free here for the next few months. I have a fair amount of work to do before one will happen. Which also means buying - not baking - bread for this bash on Sunday.

So, I think my options are;

Smoke it slowly on Saturday, foil it up, cool it, and get it in the fridge for the overnight, back on (with the foil still on) for the Sunday morning?

Get two smaller cuts instead of one large one, get up at 6am, and hope that 9 hrs is long enough for them? If it looks like it might not be, I can rank the heat up a little bit about midday. I might not have an oven at the moment but I have a fine selection of thermometers.

I am not very worried about leftovers, really - my friends are a lot of greedyguts when it comes to huge piles of pig.

[JamsCowbell]

Sorry didn't see the no oven bit! that takes away your backup plan...

I don't think part cooking and then cooling is a good idea, you'd probably be better cooking it properly the day before, letting it rest before pulling it and then store the pulled pork in the fridge. You could reheat that next day, maybe with some sauce. Pulled pork is still good even if you've had it in the freezer.

[aris]

Get yourself an inexpensive slow cooker then. They are not expensive, and quite handy to have. You can finish it off in that.

[Tiny]

Hi,
Aris has nailed it, in your situ I would invest in a slow cooker as they are fab anyway and will assist during your ovenless time. Bang in in the smoker for 3-4hours in the smoke then plop it in the slow cooker overnight at 90-100 and boom! you are a stress free pork enhanced person and your friends will treat you like an God,
Cheers
Tiny