My first pulled pork on Sunday, need some advice

[Nate]

You've had a lot of advice from other folks so I am just going to address a couple of things:

Surprise #1.... COLD BATH that thing to get it to thaw... here is the amazing ribs article on thawing meat.
Surprise #4.... Do either dark meat parts or do some Whole Chickens and shred them and do
"pulled" chicken sandwiches as well....

The problem of multiple meats:
1. Crank the heat up on that butt and wrap it (I have cooked some at 300-350 before)... Run it at a higher temp and crutch it so you can get it done in time.
2. Plan on getting the Butt done a couple hours before hand and holding it in a faux cambro or an oven set on around 170 degrees so you can.....
3. Put on different and more meat after the butt comes off (you want to do chicken at a higher temp anyway)

Nice thing about chicken and the shorter cook times is you can put one on and have it cooking while you are serving stuff... by the time you run out the other chicken can be finishing up.

Oh and one more thing:
SAVE THE JUICE from wrapping the butt.... strain the fat off and pour it back over the pork once you shred it (and don't shred/pull until you have to... air is your enemy)... It will help keep it moist

[DWCowles]

And if y'all ever get to #10 you'll have it whip 😂

[Lost in China]

Surprise #2: I plan on 200g of pulled pork per serving, is that about right? I calculate 1/2 lb of uncooked meat per serving and I end up very close to 1/4 lb serving of the final product. This makes a nice sandwich.

So, as the butt is 4.3 pounds uncooked, and it's 1/2 pound per person, that's only 9 servings?

Surprise #3: This is a very good coleslaw recipe that doesn't use relish - http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2...cole-slaw.html

Thanks! I'll give it a try.

Surprise #4: If you do skin on thighs, the skin will be pretty rubbery doing low and slow. Maybe consider skinless?

I'll probably just pour on the charcoal and keep the butt at 350, since it can take it.

I'm doing a single butt, which I will likely cut in half. Lengthwise or crosswise? Cut it crosswise, and you may want to tie it up a bit to get a uniform shape.

Thanks!

[Nate]

One last thought on your quantity problem.... Is there any chance of finding small buns... like here in the states we have the Hawaiian Rolls or something similar that folks will sometimes make sliders out of. Maybe serve 2 small slider style sandwiches which may be able to get you a little further on the meat.... just a thought.....

no matter what I'm sure it will turn out great... good luck.

[Lost in China]

Nope, and honestly I am doing spectacularly finding hamburger buns.

[Huskee]

A side thought I had-- to eliminate the misconceptions from your guests as to what the pork sandwich is, would making a simple sign saying "Real American Wood-Smoked BBQ" (in Chinese of course unless they speak English too) help eliminate preconceptions and draw your customers/guests in?

[tbob4]

If you use Bao as your bun you will likely be able to get by with much less pulled pork, per serving. The locals are likely used to a smaller portion of cha sui in the bun, which is what your pulled pork would become if served that way. However, they are typically steamed and I don't know how your would get them to wrap and steam. The boneless chicken thighs will work well with it. Are you thinking of serving that pulled and on buns?

[Lost in China]

They have plain buns which are just pure bread. Cut them in half. I'd use them but honestly I'm so afraid of the "mental connection" that I've talked myself out of it. Chinese people are really susceptible to this, once they get an idea there's no talking them out of it.

[Breadhead]

Hmmm... just maybe add a popular Chinese sauce to the pulled pork that will add a Chinese flavor to it? BBQ in America is regional... be creative! Knock their socks off... without challenging their taste buds to a completely different taste profile that they're not used to.🤔

Make it american-Chinese...🙈

[Lost in China]

No way! 100% American flavor or nothing! Frankly this entire thing is just kind of an exercise for me to cook a pork butt on someone else's dime. Free practice!

[boftx]

If you can feed 12 people with that butt I'll be surprised. And I would allow more time for the chicken. People can tolerate over-cooked chicken a lot more that they can underdone, especially if it's BBQ. You might consider boneless, skinless beats instead and go for pulled chicken to go with pulled pork.

[Lost in China]

Here's the pork butt after trimming. Funny, after cutting off all the fat scraps, the Chinese bar cook saved them and fried them up for him and his friends. I never get tired of this country.



Here's my Weber 22" kettle, my plastic tub with all the BBQ equipment in it, and my faux cambro. Gonna start at noon tomorrow and will see how everything works out! Strategically located in the corner of the 2nd floor balcony so as to let the maximum amount of smoke escape.



Oh, and just for extra fun, here's the apple wood I'm going to be using for smoking tomorrow. I have to find an axe or saw tomorrow by cooking time to hack it apart. Frankly I was lucky to even find this. The bar had a cord of apple wood (or at least what was sold to them as apple wood, we'll see tomorrow if the pork butt tastes like tar or not) but it's all in logs. I asked the boss to chop it up 2 days ago but of course it didn't happen. ACTUALLY I forgot I had a saw in my junk room, amazingly enough it's still there! Found it and put it on the kitchen table so I don't forget it tomorrow when I start cooking at noon. Eat at 9, if that's not enough time then screw it. I ain't waking up at 5am.



I suppose the wood will have the bark still on?

[Nate]

remember to HAVE FUN!

[Lost in China]

Well, I'm off to get the cook started. Thanks for everyone's help! We'll see what happens. My bet is there will be several screw-ups! But what kind of fun is it when you know what will happen beforehand?

[MBMorgan]

Break a leg!

[Lost in China]

Great...I started everything, turned on the Maverick, it was going great...and then the remote receiver beeped and displayed --- for the temps. I reset it and the transmitter several times. Nothing. Still viewable from the transmitter, but that's not why you buy a remote unit. So, I guess it's broken now. Bought in July. I had my brother buy it off Amazon for me, does Maverick take returns without a receipt?

The meat has been on for 2 hours now and it's up to 174 and has hit the stall. It actually has pools of liquid on the surface, is this normal? Should I pour it off?

The water in the SnS is boiling, is that normal? Just add more as it boils off?



I found a source of apple wood, amazingly. Turns out the bar has a wood fireplace and they bought a ton of apple from Alibaba. And, I have a saw at home I bought for some long forgotten project. So, I had wood chips of a sort. But the time that a piece of wood takes to burn is only slightly exceeded by the time one takes to saw off. My hands are starting to get sore, I'm on the 10th piece of wood or so by now.

[DWCowles]

Did you replace the batteries? What is your pit temp? Yes it's normal for puddles to form on the meat. Yes it normal for the water to boil.

[Huskee]

To re-sync, turn off the receiver and then back on. Leave the transmitter on the whole time since it's working. Within a second or two after the receiver turns on & beeps (and while the display is flashing), push and hold the "re-sync" button on the transmitter (also the F/C button), they should sync w/in a second or two and the receiver will beep to confirm and stop flashing.

Sometimes they'll lose connection, re-syncing is really easy once you do it a time or two according to those steps.

[Lost in China]

Well, it's done! I can't help but think I did something wrong, I put it on at 1:30pm and took it off at 7:20pm. Temps were 275-350 throughout. It stalled but went right through it after about 2 hours. Internal temp 205F when I took it off. Bark is tough. Tastes good enough, but as it's my first pulled pork I really don't know what it's supposed to taste like. It's resting in the faux cambro right now, we pull it and eat at 9pm.







Since it's not enough for the crowd, I'm doing boneless chicken thighs as well. It's nice that the grill is clear so I can do them separately. I did the creamy cole slaw from the site Dr ROK suggested, thanks! It didn't use any unavailable ingredients and I made a double batch of it so there'll be plenty to go round.

Funny thing, the bar boss ordered some buns from a nearby restaurant he's friends with. We have 20 brioche-looking buns instead of the sesame seed hamburger buns! This is good and bad. Good because it's a better bread, I guess. But bad because one of those big ol' buns is going to take a lot of pulled pork to fill up. I didn't make any sauce so I hope the pork is good enough to stand on its own.

It's 7:45 now and I'll start the fire at 8pm to be ready to start cooking chicken at 8:15. Should be ready to eat at 9! Wow, can't believe I'm on schedule. The bar cook has been a godsend, that man can chop like a machine. Makes cole slaw much faster than I ever could.