Another pulled pork testing opportunity

[Huskee]

JeffJ people tend to love what they have. Their dog, house, truck, etc. Smokers too. It's all good, we all have our preferences but you can make tasty stuff on anything if you use the basic core principles of meat quality, time, and temp and AR's mythbusting.

Try to picture the faults or the "doesn't haves" of either the WSM or the PBC, and if those faults would be annoying to you on down the road. Perhaps lack of side door on the PBC, or the more tinkering necessary on the WSM, those kind of things.

[fzxdoc]

Oh John, I gasped when you said that one butt took a nose dive into the coals. Bummer.

Let us know how the taste is affected with the added MSG. I'm always curious about these sorts of tests.

Kathryn

[_John_]

Well I decided to try a couple things, I read an article somewhere about cooking even hotter than the PBC normally does, and I also injected one with an apple juice broth solution and the other with the same, but with MSG added.
About 5 hours in I added one more test, dropped on the coals vs. not... These butts were pretty big and would barely squeeze between the rebar, one of the hooks snagged on the way out and the whole thing fell. It only sat there for about 5 seconds while I pulled the other and took out the rebar, but it was enough to lose a small piece which is now burning and creating some pretty bad smoke.
5 hours in and these had good bark, I had to be on a conference call and the temp dropped to 270 but I averaged above 300. I don't suggest that hot for a long cook unless you have a lot of coal, a full load normally gets me 8-10 hours where this one looked like it would have gone about 6 without coals.

[Jerod Broussard]

Whatever works. I need to do one....one day.

[JeffJ]

I REALLY want to see it because I am between a PBC or a 22.5 WSM for Christmas this year.

It seems like members of this site are more passionate about the PBC but it's also a fairly new product. I've been to the WSM forum and some of those people have a borderline fetish relationship with their WSM.

[_John_]

JeffJ I think everybody wants to see that one. I use wood every time. Charcoal works fine, but I like the added layer that the wood adds.

[JeffJ]

Is it OK to use wood in the PBC? On a different thread Jerod said that he does not and instead relies on smoke from the drippings. What I would LOVE to see is a side-by-side between a WSM and a PBC. Same rub, same temperature, same type of meat and just compare/contrast the 2.

[_John_]

Sounds like a good test, but not sure i'll be able to wait that long. Maybe I can cut what we need, wrap the rest and test it for leftovers.

[_John_]

Drippings, gotcha.

[Huskee]

_John_ Undoubtedly. The PBC has meat dripping on the coals causing the smoke for flavoring. The Web indirectly with wood & coals would be only smoke flavoring.

[_John_]

So what are we expecting to be the difference here? Do you think there will be a difference between PBC and Weber when using same rubs, coals, wood etc? Why might there be a difference?

[Huskee]

I say use identical rubs/seasonings on each. Then:

Do one on your PBC, standard method
Do one on your 22" Web. Do an indirect setup, two bricks if you have 'em. Setup a Minion method, add a few small chunks of wood periodically so as to actually smoke the butt.

Try to keep temps & times the same if possible. A full chimney Minion with proper vent control can easily get 6hrs on one load in a kettle. I'd guess at least 4 or 5 (or maybe more) if you aim for higher PBC-style temps.

Then you can get a side by side PBC vs smoked taste test.

[Jerod Broussard]

I'd like one of them butts to be taken off at 200-ish. Put on a rack, and allowed to cool at room temp (wrapped in foil). Then refrigerated and reheated in an oven at 250 (taken out the fridge a couple hours before reheating).

I'l like to know how long it takes for that thing to get to about 180 internal on the reheat. I'm thinking that would be optimal temp for pulling. Wanted that checked too.

I do this with briskets, but only slicing and chopping, no pulling, so I go to about 165 internal.

Once my briskets come down enough at room temp, I put them in the freezer til they are cool to the touch, so that they don't heat up the fridge too much.

[_John_]

In the past I have done frozen vs. thawed, mustard vs. EVOO, wrapped vs. unwrapped. I am cooking up 2 nearly identical butts tomorrow or Saturday and figured I'd open it up for testing ideas.

Reviewing suggestions from last time the only test mentioned that hasn't been done that I know of was related to injecting with MSG vs. not. I have MSG and am not opposed in any way to using it, so it is still on the table.

If you have any ideas, post em, and it doesn't have to be just the meat, it could be a PBC test of some sort.