Easter egg hunt fuel

[sb2_7]

Had the Sunday school class over tonight for an Easter egg hunt. Cooked a 7 1/2 pound pork butt and a 5 pound chicken. Both turned out pretty good. rubned the butt with meatheads Memphis dust  and the chicken with PBC all-purpose rub.

The butt went in the smoker at about 9:30 Am and I pulled it off at around 4:30 PM. The bark and butt looked amazing. I FTCed it for about another hour or so until company arrived. The Bark got a little mushy during the FTC but was otherwise pretty good. I cooked the butt until 200° and it was tender but still a little tough to pull apart. Should I have cooked it longer?

  The chicken turned out pretty good.

The smoker started around 320 and stayed about 300 for the first three hours or so. It then began to slowly decrease from there and when I put the chicken on it went down to about 230°. I cracked the lid and within 15 minutes or so it was back up to 290 and I placed the lid back on and it stayed above 270 the remainder of the cook.

All in all it was a success in the meat was good. Almost all of it was gone by the end of the meal 

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[drholly]

Sounds like a good day - did they find all the eggs?

[Smokin Don]

Looks like some great food!!! Nice cook!!! Don

[sb2_7]

Sounds like a good day - did they find all the eggs?

The kids found every single one of them! They had a blast.

FYI, this fed 13 adults, two school age kids, and a handful of toddlers.

[cgseymour]

Looks Great

[hikerman]

Very nice cook. Lots of good food! Yeah that Easter egg hunting gets the hunger rolling!

I usually cook butts to about 170F-175F foil until 200F-205F then towel and in the cooler for a couple hours if the time is available! Then usually pulls like soft butter. The times I've been in a hurry are sometimes when I have had pulling issues. 

[sliding_billy]

Looks good, and sounds like a fine day.

[smokeasaurus]

BBQ and an Easter egg hunt......ya cant go wrong with that 

[brentwoodkris]

Looks friggin' delicious! Feel free to overnight Fedex me the leftovers! 

[TentHunteR]

Everything looks great!

I cooked the butt until 200° and it was tender but still a little tough to pull apart. Should I have cooked it longer?

I don't cook for competition, but I do cook pulled pork for large groups a few times per year.

I don't even pay attention to the internal temperature anymore. I pull them off when I can stick a probe in and it slides in with virtually no resistance (like soft butter).  That way there is absolutely no question that they are done and tender.

If they are done way ahead of time, then I will wrap and put them in a cooler to stay hot.

If they're done and I'm ready to pull & serve them, then there I don't worry about  letting them rest. The connective tissues have already broken down, any juices that come out can be added back to the pulled meat.



Now competition is different. Those guys are after that money muscle that they want to slice and not pull, so in that case I can see where pulling a little sooner and resting would be of benefit.

[muebe]

Great spread of food!

Nice job feeding everyone!