So I'll be up front, no pics, as it was early, and I had some early issues that had me preoccupied. Had a pork shoulder that I split into two 4 pound halves to reduce my cook time, plus one pork loin. Loin (I split into three pieces so I had a total of six ends with rub on them) was rubbed with a friend's secret recipe, while shoulder(s) were done with a commercial one that I've had for a while and wanted to use up.
Started around 8am with lump charcoal topped with chunks of hickory in my 18" SM, using minion method. Took about an hour to get up to temperature, which while I was waiting I panicked and ran to the store and got a dry bag of charcoal (I had one, but it got wet from sprinklers that went off last night). By the time I got back, we were at 250 and seemed to be holding. Losing faith in the lump, I switched to hickory infused Kingsford and refilled twice. Did something wrong the second time as my temp soared to 350 at one point, and the juices in the water pan were sizzling. I think it ended up just helping me get the internal temp to 200. Pulled the loins off around 2 and the shoulders at 6:30.
One loin was wrapped for a new neighbor, other two were sliced and vacu-sealed for later use. Shoulders fell apart as I was pulling them off the lower grate and pulled very nicely with my bear claws. Ended up having PP sliders for dinner and vacu-sealed up three, one-pound bags for later and one Ziplock container of under a pound for sharing at work and lunch on Tuesday.
So....a couple questions:
1. Is minion not suggested when using lump or did I just panic? I don't *usually* use it, but got a great deal on a busted bag at Krogers for over half off.
2. For shoulders, what is the target internal temperature? I thought I had a Boston butt which I read was 205, but boy did that shoulder fall apart nicely at 180.
Overall, for first smoke of the year, I was pretty happy with it once my initial issues were overcome.
Hope everyone had a great weekend and has a good holiday on Monday. Take time and remember why we have this special day.