It was time this weekend for pulled pork. I had not made any in quite some time so we were due. I trimmed the fat caps and rubbed the butts down tied them with string (I used boneless from Costco for the first time - usually use bone-in) and wrapped in saran late Saturday afternoon and put them to rest in fridge. I got up at midnight and put them on the Grand Slam at 165 degrees to smoke for three hours (Solid Cherry pellets). I got back up at 3:00 AM and turned the smoker up to 225 degrees and headed back to bed.
I was planning on a 12 hour cook as that seems to have worked well in the past. A wrench was thrown in my plans when my bride of 29 years reminded me at 10:00 AM that we had a graduation brunch to attend at 11:00 AM. On to plan B. At 10:30 I pulled and wrapped them in foil. Before sealing them up I poured on some of the apple cider vinegar mop sauce I was using (Cider Vinegar, brown sugar, coarse salt, black pepper, crushed red pepper flakes, onion powder).
Off to the party we went with a 'plan' of being home by 12:00 PM at the latest. Well, you know how those things go, after visiting at the brunch and a stop at the grocery store on the way home we walked in the house at 1:30 to the sound of the Maverick beeping - honestly I was afraid to look
My plan was to get them off the smoker at around 204 - the Maverick, however, was reading 208 on one and 210 on the other. I was a little nervous because we had company coming for dinner at 3:00. I kept them in the foil and put them in a cooler until 3:00 PM. I suppose I could have vented them before putting them in the cooler but I did not. I cooked three of them because it is just as easy as doing one and it make great freezer packs with the vacuum sealer.
3:00 PM rolled around and I opened them with some skepticism wondering if they had turned to mush. They actually turned out excellent - packed with moisture and easy to pull.
The lesson learned here was that they are more forgiving than I had anticipated and as it turns out the extra high temp was OK.
Anyway, here are the pics.
I think this was somewhere around the 8 hour mark:
Coming out of the foil:
Starting the pull:
Final Product: