Well this was frustrating...Have started trying low and slow cooking on a large BGE. ribs seemed fine so tried pork butt for the first time entirely in the egg (vs. finishing in oven after initial smoke).
quick summary: stable-ish pit temp, double stall which led to a 22 hour cook (after raising the temp at the end). Drier meat than I hoped.
Setup: large BGE, with deflector. fireboard fan originally set at 225. 6.7# pork butt. Recipe per MH. did not foil/wrap. did not rest.
detailed timeline:
12:00am lit egg
1:30am happy that temp seems stabilized around 225 for an hour. attach fan and put the pork in
8:00am get alarm re: drop in pit temp. opened egg, saw plenty of charcoal, everything else looked fine. closed lid and problem seemed to resolve itself (guessing maybe fire choked out and initial gust of air + fan helped restart)
First stall hits from ~6am-9am. no worries, i know what to expect.
this is where things start to get weird
5pm (~15 hours into the cook) pork seems enter second stall @ 185, temp actually starts dropping
5:40pm - food probe temp confirmed by manual temping. increase target temp to 235-240
7:00pm: meat still at 185, i tear off a small piece and it seems ready though the texture was a bit grainy. was wondering if maybe it needed to cook further. temperature seems to break stall and start increasing
1030pm: check on charcoal. noticed a lot of ash, raked it through then increased pit temp to 250.
11:50pm: butt pulled @ 203.
Bone came out easily. the meat was shreddable. it seemed slightly dry and had a tacky texture. the bark was beef jerky like in texture (not sure if this is what it is supposed to be). Sauce definitely helped though i would think good pulled pork shouldn't be this reliant on sauce.
What i think i learned (please chime in if you disagree):
Obviously a large part of me wants to blame the meat (HA) but in an attempt to try to take something away some learnings from this:
I believe any dryness / grainy texture was from cooking the meat too long
I wonder if 225 is too low a temperature (or certainly i should have been quicker to increase the temp once the meat entered the second stall). Even pre-cook i was surprised that you could target a tight 20 degree differential between pit temp and food temp in a reasonable timeframe
I should have been more willing to increase the temperatures to 250-275 when it hit the second stall.
I should have tested for doneness (bone wiggle) 15 hours even despite the 185 food temp.
Would appreciate any other insights. Thanks!
Zoomed in graph below. note pit temp on left axis, food temp on right axis
quick summary: stable-ish pit temp, double stall which led to a 22 hour cook (after raising the temp at the end). Drier meat than I hoped.
Setup: large BGE, with deflector. fireboard fan originally set at 225. 6.7# pork butt. Recipe per MH. did not foil/wrap. did not rest.
detailed timeline:
12:00am lit egg
1:30am happy that temp seems stabilized around 225 for an hour. attach fan and put the pork in
8:00am get alarm re: drop in pit temp. opened egg, saw plenty of charcoal, everything else looked fine. closed lid and problem seemed to resolve itself (guessing maybe fire choked out and initial gust of air + fan helped restart)
First stall hits from ~6am-9am. no worries, i know what to expect.
this is where things start to get weird
5pm (~15 hours into the cook) pork seems enter second stall @ 185, temp actually starts dropping
5:40pm - food probe temp confirmed by manual temping. increase target temp to 235-240
7:00pm: meat still at 185, i tear off a small piece and it seems ready though the texture was a bit grainy. was wondering if maybe it needed to cook further. temperature seems to break stall and start increasing
1030pm: check on charcoal. noticed a lot of ash, raked it through then increased pit temp to 250.
11:50pm: butt pulled @ 203.
Bone came out easily. the meat was shreddable. it seemed slightly dry and had a tacky texture. the bark was beef jerky like in texture (not sure if this is what it is supposed to be). Sauce definitely helped though i would think good pulled pork shouldn't be this reliant on sauce.
What i think i learned (please chime in if you disagree):
Obviously a large part of me wants to blame the meat (HA) but in an attempt to try to take something away some learnings from this:
I believe any dryness / grainy texture was from cooking the meat too long
I wonder if 225 is too low a temperature (or certainly i should have been quicker to increase the temp once the meat entered the second stall). Even pre-cook i was surprised that you could target a tight 20 degree differential between pit temp and food temp in a reasonable timeframe
I should have been more willing to increase the temperatures to 250-275 when it hit the second stall.
I should have tested for doneness (bone wiggle) 15 hours even despite the 185 food temp.
Would appreciate any other insights. Thanks!
Zoomed in graph below. note pit temp on left axis, food temp on right axis
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