ToeJam
Well-known member
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- 117
- Grill(s) owned
- Bull
Purchased a pork butt which weighed about 10 lbs. from my local grocery store and the evening before the cook, I trimmed it then liberally applied my fav rub to set in overnight. Saturday morning, I went out and fired up the rt700, filled the hopper with lumberjack hickory pellets, and waited for the smoker to come up to temp. During this time of getting things ready, I took the out of the fridge and had it on the granite counter which if you didn't already know is great for thawing. Ok, so the smoker is now ready, so I put the butt on at 250F, inserted one of the temp probes from my ThermoPro TP20 and began the cook at 9am. Spritzed with 50/50 Apple juice and cider vinegar about every hour or so, trying not to keep the lid open any longer than I could. Temps were holding just fine according to the read out on the smoker. After several hours, the bark was set and looking great. I figured the cook should've taken maybe 8-9 hours. At around hour 6, internal temp of the butt was only at 160 or so, and it looked like this was going to be a marathon cook so I bumped up the temp to 275f. At no time did the cook appear to go into a "stall" as temps were continuously rising, albeit slowly, plus, I wanted to try without wrapping since the temps weren't stalling. At around hour 9, I bumped up the cooking temp to 300f and after 13 1/2 hours, I finally got a internal temp of 205f. I then pulled it off the smoker, placed in a foil pan and covered it with aluminum foil to rest. It turned out fantastic, but would never have guessed it would've taken that long. I reckon the old saying is true - "when it's done, it's done".