What would 24 Hour Pulled Pork taste like?
I saw a video a while back by Pitmaster X doing a pork shoulder on his Masterbuilt Gravity Smoker and thought, I can do that!
The finished product looked amazing so, with a pork butt already in the freezer, as I wanted to do some pulled pork, I thought I would give it a shot.
Friday night, I raced home from work, got the smoker charcoal hopper filled and lit and while the smoker was getting up to temp, I got the pork unwrapped and seasoned. I didn’t really have to trim much, which was fantastic so I could get the butt in as soon as possible. I wanted to do this within 24 hours.
The rub I used was Angus & Oinks Sweet Bones & Bacon.
This was the only thing I wanted to do to the butt. No spritzing, no wrapping, just pure meat smoking
I started the smoker temp at 225f, put the butt onto a rack in a roasting tin and got it in to smoke. This was 19:10 on the Friday. I added both Cherry and Apple Wood chunks to the ash catcher for the smoke
At 5 hours in, just after midnight, I topped the coal up (it has used about 2/3 of the hopper), checked on the butt (it already looked good enough to eat), added another couple of chunks of wood and went to bed.
At 07:30, I got downstairs thinking the hopper might be close to running out, but no, could have gone another hour, I topped it up anyway, thinking maybe 13:00 next top up.
I checked on the meat and it was looking lovely with a good bark that had a dark red colour, you could see some crispy bits developing nicely.
The internal temp of the meat was 153f. I am aiming for 205f
I also upped the temp to 250, I’m kinda experimenting to see when it will finish as I need to do the same thing in a few weeks, with 4 butts and need them to cook in the 20 hour range.
Around 12:30 I checked again, no coal needed yet at all (half way down).
The smell in our garden, from the time the cook started is just divine, I know I am making some neighbours hungry. The smell doesn’t stop at all and by 14:30, when I next topped up the coal, I wanted things to be done so I could eat.
The temp is rising ever so slowly. I know that wrapping it would help but I don’t want to, I want to see this out as intended.
And time ticks on, and on and on and the temp just keeps rising slowly, slowly.
At one point I thought we would be done by 17:00 but it was false hope.
And then it happened, at 19:10, exactly 24 hours, it finally hit 205f. Time to remove from the smoker.
The colour was rich, the smell was amazing and once removed from the shelf, a quick touch felt like it was jelly.
I managed to pull the bone out, incredibly clean. I wanted to get my hands in to pull it but it was too hot, so with the bear claws I got into it.
The meat melted, I hardly had to touch it at all. The juice was running everywhere (including off the table). Once pulled we got it into foil trays quickly and poured the juice from the roasting tin back over the meat to keep it moist.
The taste was out of this world, the meat like butter needed very little chewing at all and once sauced…OMG just unbelievable.
I don’t think I can do pulled pork any other way again. It was possibly THE best I’ve ever had.
24 Hour Pulled Pork is the ultimate. Maybe I should try the same with a brisket…..
