Pork Shoulder on UDS

[jwrobnz]

Trying my first pork butt (9.9 Lbs) on my uds. The blocks are to hold the lid down because it keeps wanting to spring up. It's Friday 11/11/11. My plan is to mustard, rub and marinade the roast until Saturday am, cook all day Saturday, rest until time to eat Sunday evening. My plan is to wrap it up in foil and put it in a small cooler until Sunday late afternoon. I'll check the internal temp then. I may need to use a slow cooker at low temp until time to eat.
Here's a pics of the uds.

Here's a pics of the roast.

Here's a pic of the roast rubbed with yellow mustard.

Here's a pic of the roast with this basic sweet/spicy rub.
1/4 cup paprika
3 Tbsp chili powder
3 Tbsp light brown sugar
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 Tbsp black pepper
1 Tbsp salt
Any advice on rubs would be appreciated. I don't like alot of heat.

Then I put the roast in a 2 gallon sealable freezer bag with a couple cups of apple cider until Saturday morning. I tasted apple cider vinegar with the apple cider and some brown sugar. I don't know if the bite of the apple cider will decrease in the cooking or not so I decided not to risk it. I just used apple cider for the marinade.

I've seen people inject before cooking or after cooking or even pour sauce into the meat after it's pulled. I would appreciate advice here.
Here a pic of my charcoal startup.

Hot coals in the basket.

I have small chips. I used about 2/3 apple chips to 1/3 mesquite.

And we're smokin'. I spread the small chips evenly to maintain smoke as the fire moves.

The lid is loose here.

Here's the roast out of the bag.

Here's the roast on the UDS at about 7:20 Saturday morning.

It's about 8:30 am Saturday. Temp seems to want to stay a little low only about 200. I reopened all vents. Temp up to 250 by 9:00 am. That's about as hot as I want it.
Here we are at 12:30 after 5 hours at 250. Internal temp is at 160 or so. See that little flap of meat sticking out the left side? It disappeared. For not having any cayenne this rub still has some heat. Not too much. I didn't pick up on the cider vinegar. I had only used about 1/4 cup in 2 cups of apple cider. When I took the meat out of the bag this morning, I thought I might have messed up. I could really smell the vinegar. It must have dissipated because it's not bad at all now. I sprayed it with some apple cider and put the lid back on. Having the lid off let the coals heat up a little. By 12:45 the temp got up to 280. That the first time it's been off 250 since 9:00 this morning. It's in the low 70's today with a light wind. This drum seems very controllable.

[Tom_Heath]

Looking good so far.....

Just my opinion here,

If it was me, and I was wanting to eat at 5 or 6 sun night.
Then I would wait and start my fire at like 4 am sun morning. That has it cooking by 4 30. Plenty of time to stall and still get done. And have time to rest.

I am not sure I would try and hold the temp from sat evening to sun evening. Thats gonna be a rough one.

[jwrobnz]

I think you're absolutely right Tom. My problem is that I want to sleep at night. I'm just funny that way. Also, things never work out that well for me. If I cut it too close on time I know I'll regret it. I'm thinking 1 1/2 hours per pound or about 15 hours of cooking time. When ever it get's done, I think I'll leave it wrapped and put it in the fridge until Sunday afternoon, then pull it into a slow cooker at low temp until serving time.

[Tom_Heath]

I hear ya on the sleep issues. LOL The older I get the more I like my sleep, thats why I am gonna build a new smoker. That should make room for a set of bunk beds in my trailer.

The butt is looking good in that last picture.

Something that I try to do is, that I don't put any meat probes in until 4 hours.
There is talk about intact muscle being different, but the general rule is 40 to 140 in 4 hours.

The intact deal lets you stretch this time out a bit so long as the meat has not been probed.


How did it taste??????? I know its not dinner time yet, but you did at least sneak a taste didn't you?

[jwrobnz]

My buddy Keith from church stopped by at 4 pm Saturday to see how the uds was working out. It's a good thing he did because the internal temp was topping 200. I was going to wait another hour. We pulled the roast off and cut us off a sampler while the rest rested. Keith said it was the best pulled pork he ever tasted. We got afraid that the one roast wouldn't be enough for the group that was meeting Sunday night so we got another roast and I repeated the whole procedure Saturday night and Sunday morning and afternoon. The roasts got alot of compliments. We had left overs though. There wasn't that many people there and the expansion from pulling surprised me. I like this rub and there was no hint of mustard. I don't know though. I'm not that big on heavy smoke. I like smoked things, but I like it better if it's not over smoked. Anyway, I'm happy with the uds. I'm getting a weber charcoal grill for Christmas for parts to put on the uds: dome lid with thermometer and vent, charcoal grate, an extra cooking grate and handles. I want to learn to airbrush. The pic above of the hot coals in the starter would looks great around the middle 1/3 of the uds with black around the bottom third and light smoke wisps around the top third. I need some wheels too and a....and a.... Well, I'm enjoying this new hobby. Thank you all for your help!

[Frank_Cox]

sounds good! glad you are enjoying it!

[Tom_Heath]

Glad to hear its all coming togather for ya.
Hope ya enjoy it every time you cook.