I completed a 4 pork butt smoke this week while on stay-cation on my 18″ Weber Smokey Mountain Smoker. For me this is a long low and slow process, and if I am going to spend up to 19 hours smoking the meat, I need to load up the smoker and take advantage of it. My oldest daughter was making a short visit and requested barbecue. I purchased 4 butts at a decent price, $1.69/lb for a total of 33 lbs pre-trimmed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I then trimmed them up removing the large fat cap from each and then seasoned with

onion powder

garlic powder

paprika

black pepper

cumin

turbinado sugar

 

 

 

 

I completed this approx 8 hours before I planned to start the smoking process.

For this long smoke I used the “minion method”. This is where you almost completely fill the charcoal chamber with unlit charcoal. In the middle I also buried some hickory wood chunks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Using my chimney starter, I then lit about 40 pieces of charcoal and then added them on top of the unlit chamber. I also added several additional chunks of hickory on top  to ensure an immediate smoke to the meat. Since this will be a long smoke, I filled the water pan with warm water. This accomplishes two things, first it adds moisture to the smoker during the long smoke, but it also helps stabilize the temperature of the smoker. Conventional wisdom states that you should let the smoker come up to temp before adding the meat. I do not follow that practice on the long smokes. Since you are running the minion method, where new coal will continually be lit through the process. I throw the meat on right away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shortly before 8:30 PM, I loaded the pork on the smoker. The smoker has 2 racks and I placed two on the bottom and two on the top. Once assembled and the pork on the smoker, I leave the top vent open (I always leave it open) and then close two of the three on the bottom, and then start with the third only 1/2 open. I then monitored the temp and adjust the single open vent to get it up to 225. I then monitor it for a couple of hours and since it was holding steady at 225, I headed to bed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am an early riser, so I was up at my normal 4:30 time frame, so I took a look at the temp and the pork. The smoker was still holding strong at 225. I did rotate the pork, moving what was on the bottom rack, to the top rack. One additional step I do  is to spritz the pork with purple grape juice. This accomplishes two things, first it help with the barks creation because of the high sugar content, and second it help with the color of the bark.

 

 

 

 

I walked the dog and went and played golf, and when I returned the smoker was still holding steady in temp, and at the 14 hour mark, I added additional charcoal. The internal temp of the butts was now 170, but needed to rise to 195-205 to be completed.

 

 

 

 

Finally at 2:30 in the afternoon or 18 hours from the start of the cooking process, the pork had reached the desired temp. It had an amazing aroma, and had a nice bark on it. Funny that in the picture, you would assume it was burnt to a crisp, but nothing could be further from the truth. To complete the process, I remove them and double wrapped each in foil and placed them in a cooler with towels, to rest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I did pull two of them that evening, one of which we ate about half for dinner, and then the second one was pulled and vacuum sealed and frozen. The video shows the removal of the bone, and pulling of the finish product.

Here is the completed product ready to eat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The final two were refrigerated still in the foil and then sliced like a brisket, and vacuum sealed and frozen.