What happened with my pulled pork today?

[TallDan]

Have had a 14.5" WSM for a few years now. Just recently got the digiq fan/controller and today was my first smoke with it. Loved the digiq, but the pork took WAY too long to smoke. Started this morning removing the pork shoulder from the cryovac packaging, patted dry, covered with rub. It was a small shoulder, ~6.25lb according to the label. Had a chimney of charcoal dumped in the bottom, some water just off the boil in the pan, a couple chunks of apple and hickory in there, and had the cook started at 7:30AM. Checked on it through the morning and had the temp rising as expected. Sometime around noon or 1:00 checked and say that I was around 160F and figured it was in the stall. No sweat, this isn't my first BBQ. Then all afternoon, I expected it to pick up and finish off, and it never did. Smoker temp stayed stable at 225F the whole time. Had to add water and charcoal to keep things going. Finally, around 11PM (15.5 hours!) and still hanging around 185F, I was running out of charcoal, wrapped it in foil and put it in the oven. Lost some temp in that process, but recovered before long. Now over 17 hours combined cooking in the smoker and oven and it's at 193F. Going to pull it out, wrap it up and put it in a cooler overnight.

Not the first time I've had the smoker take longer than expected, but boy, this seems excessive. This had been in the freezer for a while (definitely over a year, maybe two?), but I didn't expect that would be an issue.

Now that I've used the digiq once and feel comfortable with it, the next big cut of meat will definitely go on the smoker the night before. But, has anyone had THAT long of a time to smoke that small of a pork shoulder?

 

[bob1852]

I've had a few (bone-in butts) that take close to 2 hrs/lb, but nothing that excessive.

I blame the digiq.

 

[S-Met]

Asking the obvious:
Are you sure it was completely thawed? Only thing that makes sense.

That or you accidentally bought a metric pork shoulder and it was 6.25kg

 

[applescrap]

Yep, they can take forever. Everything can. Especially at 225. That's one reason why I cook at 275. Reviewing my notes, because I think it takes around 10 hours at 275 for me, I saw the last one I cooked we went to a play and I turned it down. Didn't want to overcook it. After 4 hours at 225 it went up 3 degrees. I think 12 to 17 hours at 225 sounds bout right. That's why all the early morning starts.

 

[VTX1300]

I have done many pork shoulders. I usually start mine at 325-350° for the first hour, then drop to 275° for the duration. Normally finished in around 8 hours. The higher start temp seems to kick start the process and they don't take nearly as long.

 

[TallDan]

Finally had pulled pork for dinner tonight. Ended up pretty tasty and with decent texture despite the excessive cooking time. Even the reheat today took longer than I would have expected.

Asking the obvious:
Are you sure it was completely thawed? Only thing that makes sense.

That or you accidentally bought a metric pork shoulder and it was 6.25kg

Definitely thawed. I had originally planned to smoke it earlier in the weekend, so it had been thawed ahead of time. Internal temp at the coldest was about 38F.

I have done many pork shoulders. I usually start mine at 325-350° for the first hour, then drop to 275° for the duration. Normally finished in around 8 hours. The higher start temp seems to kick start the process and they don't take nearly as long.

Since I had it started with a full chimney of charcoal, it actually started a bit hotter. It took 45 minutes for the smoker to settle down to 225F. Not as hot as you said there, but the meat heated up pretty quickly early in the smoke. It was just from 160F on that took all afternoon, evening and into the night.

 

[applescrap]

Finally had pulled pork for dinner tonight. Ended up pretty tasty and with decent texture despite the excessive cooking time. Even the reheat today took longer than I would have expected.


Definitely thawed. I had originally planned to smoke it earlier in the weekend, so it had been thawed ahead of time. Internal temp at the coldest was about 38F.


Since I had it started with a full chimney of charcoal, it actually started a bit hotter. It took 45 minutes for the smoker to settle down to 225F. Not as hot as you said there, but the meat heated up pretty quickly early in the smoke. It was just from 160F on that took all afternoon, evening and into the night.

That's right 160. The stall. It's an interesting phenomenon really. The meat sweats, just like a human. This sweating action cools the meat, just like sweating cools the human. Around 160 the meat will sweat and cool in actual fact as quick as it takes in heat. This phenomenon has no time limit or predictability. Sometimes short, sometimes long, especially at 225. Many wrap their meat around this temp, known as the crutch, or Texas crutch. As everyone knows I never wrap my meat. Don't know why I don't, but at least I get to say that. I guess I prefer to not boil the meat. Ribs I suspect could use wrapping beneficially. The hotter you cook, you can blaze through the stall. I have smoked at higher temps and the results are nice as well as a 4 hour cook. Just don't put any sugar on till the very end.

 

[Toxxyc]

That's why I prefer to use the Texas Crutch when I hit the stall. The sweating is the meat losing juice, which I don't want. Wrap with double layer foil, with half a beer in the packet. I use a light lager, just for moisture, and it works a treat. My last shoulder was also a 6lb cut, and while I did stick to slightly higher temps (around 250°F), it took 10 hours from start to eating, which wasn't too bad.

Oh and this was in a normal Weber, not a smoker or anything special.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Agree with @applescrap and @Toxxyc on avoiding the stall by going with higher temps. I understand most competition cooks are typically at 275 these days on both brisket and pork butt.

As @applescrap says, you sometimes simply can't predict the stall for any given piece of meat. But typically that variance comes down a lot the hotter you cook. At 275 you'll power through the stall much more quickly even if it's a "slow" butt. Although I wouldn't recommend this for brisket, I've done pork butts "turbo mode" at 350+. Done very quickly, and comes out just as beautifully as at lower temperature with the exception that I don't think the bark is quite as nice--the very outer layer gets more desiccated than typical bark. But the inside is just perfect and the cook takes much less time.

I would ask one thing... This being your first time with digiq, are you sure the temp probe on the digiq is working properly? Did you have a second probe to correlate? I wonder if maybe the actual temp wasn't 225 even if the digiq was reporting 225?

 

[TallDan]

Agree with @applescrap and @Toxxyc on avoiding the stall by going with higher temps. I understand most competition cooks are typically at 275 these days on both brisket and pork butt.

As @applescrap says, you sometimes simply can't predict the stall for any given piece of meat. But typically that variance comes down a lot the hotter you cook. At 275 you'll power through the stall much more quickly even if it's a "slow" butt. Although I wouldn't recommend this for brisket, I've done pork butts "turbo mode" at 350+. Done very quickly, and comes out just as beautifully as at lower temperature with the exception that I don't think the bark is quite as nice--the very outer layer gets more desiccated than typical bark. But the inside is just perfect and the cook takes much less time.

I would ask one thing... This being your first time with digiq, are you sure the temp probe on the digiq is working properly? Did you have a second probe to correlate? I wonder if maybe the actual temp wasn't 225 even if the digiq was reporting 225?

I didn't really question the temp probe while in the smoker; it was within a reasonable margin of error of the lid thermometer. I know that lid thermometers are notoriously inaccurate, but mine had always been within a reasonable margin of error from the maverick I used before I had the digiq, which was reasonably close to my thermapen. I did start to wonder later, so when I moved to the oven, i put the digiq temp probe in the oven and it tracked to oven temp.

It think this just gets chalked up to the same old "It's done when it's done" mantra of smoking meat. In hindsight, I definitely should have started earlier or went with a higher temp, but it sounds like nobody would have expected such a long stall.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

It think this just gets chalked up to the same old "It's done when it's done" mantra of smoking meat. In hindsight, I definitely should have started earlier or went with a higher temp, but it sounds like nobody would have expected such a long stall.

Nope. A 6.25# is something I'd expect to cook in under 12 hours without a doubt at 225.