I'm talking about pork roast Boston Butt! A roast that comes from the shoulder.
The end result gives you some of that famous pulled pork, or in Mexican restaurants it is called carnitas. The next time you have a pulled pork lunch or a carnitas dinner, respect the time and careful cooking that was used to prepare it. :)
Sunday I went to the new Farmer Joe's in Oakland and bought some really expensive hippy dippy natural foods and a nice boned and tied pork roast from the counter in the back.
I took it home and planed to smoke it whole Monday night/Tuesday morning then let it rest.
A few weeks ago I had made a rub and a Carolina sauce with recipes from Dr BBQ's book.
So Monday night at 11pm on went the rub, and some cherry wood chips went into a bowl of water to soak. I went outside and got the Big Green Egg ready to go. I put some big chunks of hardwood inside, then added smaller chunks to fill in the gaps. I used an electric charcoal lighter to get it going, then closed to lid with top and bottom vents open and let it heat up.
It warmed up pretty quick, and I closed the vents some to get it to settle down to 225-250 degrees. I ended up completely closing the top vent, and just had the bottom vent open about 1/2 of an inch. When it sat at 225 or so I opened it up and tossed in the wood chips I had soaking then a drip pan with a v-rack and the 5 pound pork roast. Hmm just 5 pounds, how long could it take you ask? Har! You'll see!
It was about midnight. I closed the lid and smoke came pouring out the top. It smelled great, but I wondered if my neighbors would call the fire department in the middle of the night! I guess I should have told them I was doing an all night cook.
I made sure the temps were stable and went to bed.
About 9 am Tuesday I went out to check the Egg. The temp was still around 225 (nice!) and I put the temperature probe in the roast to check on it. It read 185. Hmm DONE! you say? Not really. True that pork is done at 160 (but I like it at about 150) but these roasts have lots of tough sections that have to be cooked away, so 200 is when it is really done.
These roasts will climb in temp slowly then reach a plateau. They will just sit at a temperature for hours. But if you wait long enough they will then climb again towards that magical 200 when all that tissue has broken down.
BBQ'ers (like Tom Petty) say waiting is the hardest part, and that is true. I didn't have a group waiting to eat, so I could take my time and let it cook low and slow. I did. And I waited.
Finally about 12:45 it hit 200. Almost 13 hours of cooking a 5 pound roast! Wow!
But it wasn't really done yet. I got my tongs and picked up the roast, man good thing it was tied, it was really soft. I wrapped it in foil, then put it in a small cooler with towels and newspaper and closed the lid. This way it could slowly cool off and later I could have a nice pulled pork dinner.
Tuesday night I put on some disposable gloves and got a fork and really did pull the pork roast apart. No knife needed, it was soft and tender, with a nice black chewy crust on the outside from the thick rub I used. When I pulled it apart the good stuff went into a bowl, the funky fatty stuff went into the little green bucket to be recycled.
I added some tangy Carolina BBQ sauce on top. The vinegar based flavor of the sauce mixed with the sweet crust and the smoked pork made for a great pulled pork Boston Butt dinner.
Time from prep to dinner table: 23 hours! Wow!
I love my Big Green Egg!
Here's a PDF link to some great recipes for the Egg.
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