It was time to to try pulled pork. I had 4 pounds of pork butt that unfortunately came delivered to me in two pieces, like 2 fat steaks! I have never seen that before and was expecting a small roast. I had to tie it with twine to keep the steaks together too as I wanted them to cook equally. I was so close to switching to making pork butt burnt ends instead, but I stuck to the original plan...
I made a rub and coated it all over and then put it in a Ziploc in the fridge overnight. I used unrefined coconut sugar in place of brown sugar when making the rub.
In the morning I injected "Dr. Pepper" every two inches around the steaks.
Geez, that was fun (not) when pop squirted out all over my cupboards, coffee maker and spices! I placed them in a in a foil roasting pan.
I was going to put a diced onion on the bottom but I forgot. :( I took it to the smoker which was set at 225°F and put the probe in. I was shooting for a final temp of 205°F for pulling, so I played it by ear by watching temperature and time. It was at 170°F after 3 hours. I poured about a cup of Dr. Pepper that had squirted out from the injecting into the pan (and landed on my plate, not the surroundings!), basting the top at this time. Below is how it looked:
It stalled at 186°F for an hour or so. I wasn't really looking at time except for when we wanted to eat dinner. At 190°F I covered it in foil and turned it up to 250°F as dinner time was approaching...I also removed 2 screws from the hopper grate so I could mix the pellets easier to make them evenly spread out as I was down to almost half full and didn't want to pour more in... I hit 205°F about 7 hours later. I smoked some corn rubbed in butter and sprinkled with Trader Joe's "Everything but the Elote" spice and fresh cracked pepper. I did this for 45 minutes, right on the grill while I let the pork rest covered in foil before pulling. I flipped the corn once halfway through.
For the slaw, I mixed purple cabbage, cilantro, apple cider vinegar, olive oil, Dijon mustard, jalapeno, fresh squeezed lime juice, fresh cracked pepper and kosher salt. I picked up divine potato buns from a local bakery and they are really the best buns ever for any type of burger sammy in my opinion. I toasted them. I used some "Sweet Baby Ray's Hickory & Brown Sugar" BBQ sauce when pulling the pork.
The next day I took all the pork out of the hardened fat and reheated in the oven at 200°F. I pulled it more as I left it in big chunks last night because of all the fat. This was fine pulled pork. I have nothing to complain about, it was smoky, spicy and sweet. The slaw was perfect with its vinegary crunchy heat.
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