Big Green Egg: Boston Butt

Well, it's official.  We've joined The Big Green Egg groupie cult and there is no going back!

Cooking on the egg has already proven to be an art, so I thought I'd track our experiences in hopes that it will help us improve and also help others new to The Egg.

Today, we cooked our first BGE Boston butt.  Here are the steps that we followed.

Night Before:

• Made the rub (recipe adapted from Paula Deen's BBQ Pork Sandwich) by mixing together; 2 tablespoons salt, 2 tablespoons pepper, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, 2 tablespoons paprika, 1/2 tablespoon cayenne pepper, 1/2 tablespoon garlic powder

• Covered the pork shoulder with this mixture then wrapped it in plastic wrap and refrigerated overnight

• Completely cleaned out the egg removing any leftover ash

• Added fresh natural lump charcoal up to the top of the firebox (could have done this in the morning instead)

• Placed 2 hickory wood chunks in water to soak overnight

Day of:

• At 6:00am - lit the charcoal and began to heat the egg up to 250°

• Around 7:00am - injected the butt with a 1 1/2 ounce equal part mixture of apple cider vinegar and apple juice, then inserted the thermometer

• At 7:30am (when the egg had heated up and the starter had completely burned off), we put the butt on the egg

Then, we waited, and waited, and waited...

At 12pm, the internal temp was up to 140°. Pork is considered cooked at 170°, but for falling-apart pulled pork, you want to shoot for 195°-200°.

By 8:30pm, the temperature had reached 185°. We thought we would have eaten an hour earlier. We also wanted to try out the Foil, Towel, Cooler technique (also known as FTC), but decided that we would try that next time around.

• 9:45pm - we finally pulled the butt off the egg, once it reached 195°. Under most circumstances, we would have at minimum let the meat rest to redistribute the juices, but it was 9:45 (past our bedtime), so we pulled out the bone and pulled it apart.

Conclusion: Excellent.  We made sandwiches on Publix bakery hamburger buns.

What we will do differently with our Boston Butt next time:

• Cook it overnight. It took a good 13+ hours for it to finish cooking. If you want to eat at a reasonable hour, don't cook it the same day.
• Try the FTC technique. If we can't do that, let it rest for at least 15 minutes before pulling it apart.
• Consider wrapping it in foil once it reaches about 160°.
• Consider reducing the cayenne pepper and adding another spice for additional flavor with less heat. Only the skin was spicy, but it was pretty spicy.
• Pickles