Ok,
The Big Boss and one of the other Bosses asked me about smoking pulled pork for our entire office floor as a reward for the recent team effort everyone had made in a special project. Of course I said I would do it. So this is the story of that smoke. For those of you who ask "can you do 4 large pork butts in the 18.5" WSM", the answer is yes. I do it all the time for smokes like this one. I have done 6 (3 per grate), but I think that might be tempting fate too much.
So lets get started......
I loaded the fire ring completely with Kingsford blue bag. I embedded some nice hickory chunks along with some special oak. This oak is cut sections of used Jack Daniels whiskey barrels. Nice char on the inside and oh such a wonderful aroma. I have no idea if this will impart any of that aroma to the meat, but oak and hickory are a great blend for smoking pork. Lit about 1/2 chimney of charcoal around noon. My goal is to have the pit stable and meat on around 1:30 to 2PM.
Picked up the meat at the local Sam's Club. Two of the 2 pork butt cryo-packs total weight was around 43 pounds (big butts!!!). Trimmed and prepped to just over 40 pounds of pork butt. Rub is a special mix I make up just before use.
Yes, that is a lot of meat for a 18.5" WSM. Fills both grates. I chose the two smallest butts for the bottom grate as it tends to run a little cooler. I've done it this way before and the smaller butts are generally done about the same time as the larger ones on the top grate. It's not a huge difference in temp, but by selecting them by weight this way, I don't have to rotate them around throughout the cook.
One loaded WSM!!!! And we are off by about 1:45PM. Right on schedule. I expect to this to be done around 6 to 8am tomorrow morning, depending on what sort of stall I get. I will pull the butts, foil them and hold in a portable ice chest until lunch. I'm running the WSM with a foiled clay flower pot base sitting in the old model water bowl, with no water or sand.