Today marked my first pulled pork cook on the pellet grill. I have done them several times on the Weber gas grill but threw out everything I knew from that. I formulated my strategy based on several posts I have read on the site about pulled pork (thank you everyone!).
I trimmed the fat caps (I had never done that before but really liked the result) rubbed down and wrapped in saran and refrigerated overnight. Based on the extreme salt situation on my rib cook yesterday (I had already rubbed the butts with the same rub and wrapped and refrigerated them so there was no turning back) I got up at 4:00 AM, fired up the grill and rinsed the rub off the butts because I thought they would be way to salty if I left the rub. I patted them dry and placed them on the pellet smoker. Because it was my first butt burn I considered a lot of different methods I have read and sort of combined what I thought would work best for my first cook and crossed my fingers.
I ran the cooker at 190 for the first three hours to get them smoked up a bit (applewood pellets
then turned up the heat to 245 for the next several hours. When the IT hit 180 degrees I pushed the heat up to 300 to finish them off. They were not as crusted as I thought they would be so I did not wrap them in foil to finish. I removed them when the IT temp hit 205. I let them rest for a bit while I mixed up the North Carolina Vinegar Sauce (love that stuff with pork) sliced up the cabbage and made the slaw then tore into them. The bones slipped right out, they pulled incredibly easy - super tender, still moist, and not too salty (my biggest fear avoided). I was amazed that I did not hit any tough spots like I had before when I cooked them on the gas grill on indirect heat.
We served with rolls, baked beans, the cole slaw, and an ice cold Elysian IPA. No plated pictures - we were hungry and exited to dig in!
Total cook time was nearly 12 hours.
Here are the pics
