You can eat my butt.

Pork butt that is.

We are having a few friends over tonight for some BBQ. Thought you guys might like some pictures.

Last night before bed I got my smoker all set up for the morning. Filled the Big Green Egg up to the top of the firebox with lump charcoal and then put some hickory lumps and chips on top to maintain smoke. I start the fire in the middle using a propane torch and during the cook it slowly burns outward in an expanding circle.



It is an 8 lb boston butt pork shoulder. Rubbed it yesterday afternoon using a good old fashioned BBQ rub consisting largely of brown sugar and paprika, with half a dozen other spices to a lesser degree. Wrapped it in plastic wrap and let it sit in the fridge over night.



Woke up this morning at 4 to put this bad boy on the smoker. First I got the egg up to 250 deg and kept it there for a half hour to heat soak the ceramic dome.



Then put in the pizza stone to keep the heat indirect, and put in the meat.

Meat went on the fire at 4:45 am. Here it is at 1:30 when I added a rack of ribs to go with it. This is the one and only time Im opening the dome. Notice how the bark is starting to blacken? Thats all your smokey flavor right there.



I also made up two different kinds of BBQ sauce. First we have a vinegar based sauce that is mostly apple cider vinegar and brown sugar, with a few spices mixed in for flavor. I've never had this style of sauce, as I think it is more of a south eastern style.



The 2nd sauce is a traditional tomato based sauce. At the end I split the batch in half and added a couple tablespoons of red pepper flake to one of them to make it extra spicy.



Pay no attention to the Jars I used, no Ragu was used in the making of these sauces.

Damn, that looks good. I want some smoked meat.

Looking mighty fine! Looks like a new BGE too!

I love me some pulled pork sammiches!

You forgot to post a follow-up saying that the Eastern Carolina style sauce blew your mind and that you now understand just how good pork can be.

EdWort said:

Looking mighty fine! Looks like a new BGE too!

I love me some pulled pork sammiches!

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Thanks Ed! Your testimonials are a large part of the reason I got it. Its about a month old. Tell your buddy at eggaccessories.com to hurry up and get those adjustable rigs in!

elkdog said:

You forgot to post a follow-up saying that the Eastern Carolina style sauce blew your mind and that you now understand just how good pork can be.

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Nope, just haven't pulled it off the Egg yet. I'll let you know.

So, at 6:30 pm it was time to pull the meat off. I wanted the pork butt to get to 200 deg F internal temp, but I didn't have enough time. I pulled it off at 177 deg internal temp. The temp difference means that not all of the available fat had liquefied. It wasn't quite as tender as I would have liked, but there were hungry people waiting. Here is what it looked like when I opened the dome.




Here is the pork after I pulled it. I left some nice big chunks too, just in case somebody wanted something to chew on.



Here is the ribs all cut up. People loved the ribs, but of course I wasn't quite satisfied. I had to cook them at a little higher temp than I would have liked in an attempt to raise the internal pork butt temp. They were not as tender as I would have liked. Still fell of the bone though.



And of course, the meal wouldn't have been complete with out at least something vegetable like.

The Eastern Carolina sauce took me by surprise. It was really good. It brought out the flavor of the pork really well. The western style sauce was also really good. It tied the sandwich together really well.

My wife graduated with her master's degree last month and we had a huge bbq that had me cooking all day: 10 lbs of homemade sausage, 25 lbs of Boston Butt (3 buttts), and 3 whole chickens. I used oak and hickory from trees cut down in my own yard. I tried to get some applewood, but couldn't get any at the last minute. I cut slits in the butts and filled them with rub and garlic cloves as well as covering the whole butt in rub. I love REAL barbecuing like that.

I don't have a bge though. I use a tall cabinet-style smoker that I got for dirt cheap at a yard sale. Your post makes me want to fire that sucker up and have some cue.

It's official. I need to buy a smoker. I worked at a BBQ joint during graduate school- and learned some tricks along the way!

Every time I see pics of chow off a BGE I want to throw my smoker out the window and go out and get one.

Looks great!

I really don't think the BGE produces food that is really any different, I just think it takes much MUCH less effort to make it good. For my 13 hour cook I filled the egg with charcoal at the beginning and then didn't open it up again. Small adjustments to the air vents was all that was required.

Next time I'm going to use a mop sauce on the pork butt, and definitely give it a full 18 hours.

Stinkonamonkey said:

I really don't think the BGE produces food that is really any different, I just think it takes much MUCH less effort to make it good. For my 13 hour cook I filled the egg with charcoal at the beginning and then didn't open it up again.

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That's just it. I have to babysit my CharGriller horizontal (works a little better with logs, though). That and the temperature range on a BGE is just crazy. :rockin:

Stinkonamonkey said:

The Eastern Carolina sauce took me by surprise. It was really good. It brought out the flavor of the pork really well. The western style sauce was also really good. It tied the sandwich together really well.

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I'm biased, having grown up in NC, and being a huge fan of the BBQ I'd get on my way to the beach, but that vinegar-based sauce makes pork into heaven for me. The tomato-based stuff still makes for one of the best foods on earth, but man...

I dig on all varieties of barbeque sauce, but Carolina chopped pork with a vinegar based sauce and a dab of cole slaw on top is most definitely a slice of heaven.

Looks good. Next time you'll have to get up at 3am to get the 8lb butt done...or get a smaller butt.