So I got home from grocery shopping with the family yesterday around lunch time and was kind of bored. In reality, I was bored silly. I have a pretty good stash of winter meat in the freezer that I need to cook (so that I can buy more of course) now that the weather is warming up. What's a man going to do with no thawed meet though? Smoke a frozen 10 lb pork butt of course. When I say frozen, I mean LIKE A ROCK. The oldest one in the freezer had been in there since December. Fired up the offset with about 15 lbs of unlit charcoal in a charcoal ring in the firebox and about 2 lbs of lit charcoal on top (3 fist sized hickory chunks buried in the charcoal for good measure). While it came to temp and thinned out the white smoke, I prepped the meat. I ran it under cold water for a minute so that I could remove the plastic packaging then rinsed off the frost and packaging goop. I rubbed it up and got it on the smoker at around 3:00 at 200 degrees. I was able to hold steady at around 230 degrees until 9:00 with no additional fuel or maintenance. When the temp started to drop, I put the grate in the firebox and moved the butt in there for some open flame cooking (about 15 minutes on each side). I still had enough lit coal in there to keep going for a while, so I kept it in the box for another 1.5 hours at 250. It was a little tricky holding temp that low in the box, but it did OK. Now that the charcoal was pretty well burned down, I needed to decide how to finish. I wasn't in the mood to restart the fire and tend it again, and it was a little bit too warm to run the oven all night. I decided to put it in the electric smoker and go to bed. Internal temp was around 120 degrees, so I had plenty of time left before I was done. I loaded some hickory chips just in case it would take any more wood flavor and went to sleep with the electric running 235 degrees. About 5 hours later, I woke up and looked at the remote thermometer readings. Meat was at 174 and pit was holding steady between 230-235. I have no idea if it stalled or where, but sleeping through the stall is a great feeling. It climbed steadily for the next 4 hours or so until it hit 195 at 8:00. So, 17 hours for a frozen 10 lb butt running really low and slow was about what I figured. I wrapped it and took a walk with the family. Started pulling at about 9:30 when I got back. Bone came clean, and the meat pulled effortlessly by hand. I left a couple of the large chunks for the wife (she likes it better that way than pulled) with no liquid added. I mixed in a little bit of a sweet and tangy thin sauce and all the chopped up bark. The kids and me were going at it with forks right off of the cutting board until my wife asked if we wanted to have an early lunch/brunch. Well, since she asked...
Anyways, that's the incredibly true story of how I turned a bored Saturday afternoon into an adventure in pulled pork. Luckily, there are plenty of leftovers for next weekend already frozen in vacuum bags. This cook was supposed to be a week from now because the wind was supposed to be too bad this weekend. Other than the chimney starter lighting extremely quickly, I didn't have any wind issues despite steady 25 mile an hour gusts. My take on cooking frozen butt... Low and slow is the way to go so you don't overcook the outer meat while the inside thaws and comes to temp. It wouldn't have been a bad idea to re-rub before putting it in the electric as rubbing the frozen butt doesn't really allow for penetration of flavor (I normally rub and wrap overnight). That being said, my wife said she really liked that the rub wasn't very assertive. Surprisingly, the smoke ring was still really good and the wood/smoke flavor permeated the meat nicely. Cooking over open flame midway through the cook worked great. The bark hadn't built up as much as it normally would because that layer was still thawing while it would have been crisping. The open flame took care of that problem easily. I might start doing that when cooking thawed butts. Thank God for electric smokers and sleeping through the stall! Here's the evidence. Sorry there are only a few shots, but I was flying by the seat of my pants this whole cook. Of all the shots, I forgot to take one of the butt while frozen and on the smoker. Duh!
[attachment deleted by admin]
