First time doing pork shoulder on a Weber, worked great! Here are my notes and pics.
Hi there gang...been doing the "smoking on a gas grill" thing for quite some time and while I've had some great results, I haven't cooked on charcoal in the longest time, so I finally got myself together and bought a Weber Jumbo Joe so I've at least got something I can experiment with, but it's small enough that it's still portable if I want to bring it out somewhere. Had great results with a pair of pork tenderloins as my first cook on it, and next I wanted to tackle a pork shoulder for pulled pork.
Set up the snake method on one side, with a drip pan on the other, then lit my chimney and got it going. Put the meat on the opposite side (not a huge shoulder by any means, just over 3 lbs), and water pan over the coals. Put my thermometer probes in the meat and on the grill next to the meat, and off I went! My notes that I took as I went are below. Note that it was a chilly day (spring is taking its sweet time to get to Southern Alberta) but not too windy so temp was still quite easy to maintain, though I imagine I probably used a little more fuel than I would have compared to a hot sunny day.
1:40 pm meat on. Grill has been lit and heating for about 20 mins. Vents wide open to get back to temp after having lid open to put on meat. Internal temp of meat 46. Ambient temp outside 39. Using the snake method so I shouldn’t have to add much (if any) fuel.
2:08 grill temp 225. Took a little longer to get there as I opened the grill once around 1:50 to add the wood chips I had forgotten. Internal temp 54. Vents still wide open to see if we can get closer to 250-260. Rate of heating has slowed a bit so I might add a little charcoal right on top of where it's burning, but I'll give it a few mins and see.
2:18 added 8 or 10 briquettes right on top of the existing burn at about to help it along a little.
2:39 temp seems to be creeping up ever so slowly. No doubt the outside temp (now 40) is affecting things a bit. Grill temp back up to 225 (lost a little when I added the new charcoal of course) but still going up. Internal meat temp now 79. Looks like this cook will take a little longer than anticipated but we're still looking OK.
3:00 New charcoal seems to have helped, grill temp now 255, meat is exactly 100. Probably go out in 10 or 15 and close vents a little.
3:31 grill temp now 268, gonna close vents maybe halfway. Meat temp 133. Ambient temp unchanged.
4:08 temp down to 253 so I'll crack the vents ever so slightly more. Meat is at 156.
4:25 stoked the coals and rearranged them a little and actually had the temp go too high. Have a really solid bed of coals now and still lots left. Perhaps 2/3 of the way around the half circle of coals. Misted and flipped the pork. Closed vents to maybe 1/8 open, temp seems stable at around 285 (a little high but I feel it will drop a little over the next 15 mins with the vents closed so much). Meat internal is 160. At 5 pm I think I'll take it off and wrap it in foil and put it back on until I get to 195.
6:05 Took meat off and wrapped it in foil at a little after 5, and returned to the grill. Stoked the coals a little to hurry things slightly, grill temp has been just over 300 since 5:20 or so. (A little higher than I prefer but at this point I feel it won't make a giant difference, as the meat is very close to done already.) Meat temp is 181, gonna pull it off at 190ish as it will carry over a bit.
6:25 pulled meat from grill, temp was 192. wrapped in a couple of towels to rest. Started sauce simmering and got buns ready, and made a quick salad.
7:05 opening foil and see what we have! Ready to shred. Checked internal temp just before opening foil, still a solid 185. Sauced, placed on my toasted buns and we're eating!
Set up the snake method on one side, with a drip pan on the other, then lit my chimney and got it going. Put the meat on the opposite side (not a huge shoulder by any means, just over 3 lbs), and water pan over the coals. Put my thermometer probes in the meat and on the grill next to the meat, and off I went! My notes that I took as I went are below. Note that it was a chilly day (spring is taking its sweet time to get to Southern Alberta) but not too windy so temp was still quite easy to maintain, though I imagine I probably used a little more fuel than I would have compared to a hot sunny day.
1:40 pm meat on. Grill has been lit and heating for about 20 mins. Vents wide open to get back to temp after having lid open to put on meat. Internal temp of meat 46. Ambient temp outside 39. Using the snake method so I shouldn’t have to add much (if any) fuel.
2:08 grill temp 225. Took a little longer to get there as I opened the grill once around 1:50 to add the wood chips I had forgotten. Internal temp 54. Vents still wide open to see if we can get closer to 250-260. Rate of heating has slowed a bit so I might add a little charcoal right on top of where it's burning, but I'll give it a few mins and see.
2:18 added 8 or 10 briquettes right on top of the existing burn at about to help it along a little.
2:39 temp seems to be creeping up ever so slowly. No doubt the outside temp (now 40) is affecting things a bit. Grill temp back up to 225 (lost a little when I added the new charcoal of course) but still going up. Internal meat temp now 79. Looks like this cook will take a little longer than anticipated but we're still looking OK.
3:00 New charcoal seems to have helped, grill temp now 255, meat is exactly 100. Probably go out in 10 or 15 and close vents a little.
3:31 grill temp now 268, gonna close vents maybe halfway. Meat temp 133. Ambient temp unchanged.
4:08 temp down to 253 so I'll crack the vents ever so slightly more. Meat is at 156.
4:25 stoked the coals and rearranged them a little and actually had the temp go too high. Have a really solid bed of coals now and still lots left. Perhaps 2/3 of the way around the half circle of coals. Misted and flipped the pork. Closed vents to maybe 1/8 open, temp seems stable at around 285 (a little high but I feel it will drop a little over the next 15 mins with the vents closed so much). Meat internal is 160. At 5 pm I think I'll take it off and wrap it in foil and put it back on until I get to 195.
6:05 Took meat off and wrapped it in foil at a little after 5, and returned to the grill. Stoked the coals a little to hurry things slightly, grill temp has been just over 300 since 5:20 or so. (A little higher than I prefer but at this point I feel it won't make a giant difference, as the meat is very close to done already.) Meat temp is 181, gonna pull it off at 190ish as it will carry over a bit.
6:25 pulled meat from grill, temp was 192. wrapped in a couple of towels to rest. Started sauce simmering and got buns ready, and made a quick salad.
7:05 opening foil and see what we have! Ready to shred. Checked internal temp just before opening foil, still a solid 185. Sauced, placed on my toasted buns and we're eating!
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