I travel a lot for my job and as a result I'm usually running errands during the weekend so being home for most of the day to smoke is always a challenge. The idea of being able to sous-vide the meat in advance and then smoke the meat for a few hours before I served it really appealed to me. My first attempt was with a pork butt and it was a huge success. I used the Serious Eats time/temp recommendation, but prepped the meat per Meathead's recipe. So dry brined with salt, sous-vided at 165 for 24 hours, chilled in fridge for half a day, rubbed with Memphis Dust, and then smoked for about 3 hours at 275 on the BGE with some apple chunks.
Bringing sous-vide bath up to temp:
After 24 hours sous-vide cook. Looked disgusting, smelled amazing. When I went to put the Memphis Dust on, I had to be careful because the butt was already fall-apart tender:
After about 1 hour on the BGE:
Fully smoked and ready to pull:
When I started to pull it apart, the meat was super moist. Frankly, too moist. Of course my wife and friends were sampling as I was pulling and we all agreed it was too juicy. It tasted amazing, but it didn't have the normally, slightly dry texture of pulled pork. Maybe that is just us, but we expect pulled pork to have some texture vs being super juicy. At that point I was a little worried that the sous-vide was not going to be a good technique for our preferences. However, by the time I finished pulling the pork and placed it on the table, the meat had dried out slightly and the texture was absolutely perfect:
Bringing sous-vide bath up to temp:
After 24 hours sous-vide cook. Looked disgusting, smelled amazing. When I went to put the Memphis Dust on, I had to be careful because the butt was already fall-apart tender:
After about 1 hour on the BGE:
Fully smoked and ready to pull:
When I started to pull it apart, the meat was super moist. Frankly, too moist. Of course my wife and friends were sampling as I was pulling and we all agreed it was too juicy. It tasted amazing, but it didn't have the normally, slightly dry texture of pulled pork. Maybe that is just us, but we expect pulled pork to have some texture vs being super juicy. At that point I was a little worried that the sous-vide was not going to be a good technique for our preferences. However, by the time I finished pulling the pork and placed it on the table, the meat had dried out slightly and the texture was absolutely perfect:
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