# Weekend Custom Order Cook



## krj (Sep 27, 2018)

This weekend I’m doing up 206lbs for a local non-profit selling food at a fair. Earlier today I got everything rubbed down and wrapped back up until they’re ready to go on tomorrow night. This will be my biggest cook to date, and my largest on my new smoker. But after three fireups with the new gal, I’m already extremely comfortable, and barring any major malfunctions I expect a smooth cook throughout the night. I’ll be interested to see how long it takes me to pull that much butt, so I’m giving myself a couple hour window before delivery. 








Table wasn’t large enough to have them all laying flat for a more impressive picture. Time to get a bigger table lol.


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## oldsmokerdude (Sep 27, 2018)

That's a lot of butt. What kind of cooker do you use that can accommodate that much meat at once? I agree, pulling that much pork will be a lot of work. How do you typically do it? I recommend the Bear Paws if you don't already have them. They will greatly shorten the amount of time and effort it takes to pull the pork.

Looking forward to some pix of the meat in the cooker and the finished product.


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## krj (Sep 27, 2018)

I have a large gravity fed smoker. I have a cheapo(gifted) set of bear claws that don’t work very well. I did a test run of using a hand mixer to shred a butt last weekend. It worked pretty well, but was a little smaller than I try for when I hand pull. I’m going to try and hand pull with my heat resistant gloves, and if I get to fed up with that I might resort to the mixer.


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## chilerelleno (Sep 27, 2018)

You need a few volunteer pork pullers.
I'd volunteer if I could nibble on bark while I pull. :rolleyes: :D ;)

That's a big cook, I hope it goes smoothly for ya.


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## flatbroke (Sep 27, 2018)

Big under taking. Good luck


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## gmc2003 (Sep 28, 2018)

That's an impressive amount of pork goodness you got laid out on that table. Good luck with your cook and be sure to keep up up to date.

Chris


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## gmh313 (Sep 28, 2018)

krj said:


> I have a large gravity fed smoker. I have a cheapo(gifted) set of bear claws that don’t work very well. I did a test run of using a hand mixer to shred a butt last weekend. It worked pretty well, but was a little smaller than I try for when I hand pull. I’m going to try and hand pull with my heat resistant gloves, and if I get to fed up with that I might resort to the mixer.




i just use grill tongs.  I'll have a set in each hand and pull in a criss-cross method. you can break apart a butt in about a minute.


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## krj (Sep 28, 2018)

Butts all loaded into the smoker with one rack to spare! Here’s to a nice night of smoking.


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## krj (Sep 29, 2018)

Well if it could have gone wrong, it did. I finally managed to get all 200lbs off, pulled and delivered about an hour later than what I wanted. 

Let me count the adversity I had to deal with last night. 

1. For some reason I inexplicably had almost a full rack of butts done done after 5 hours. Still not sure what that was about. 
2. When I tasted a bit of the quick finished butts they tasted and smelled horrid, I thought the meat had gone bad. My folks tried it later and sad it tasted and smelt fine. I’ve been congested this week so I’m attributing it to that. But that’s a bad thought at 2:30am that you might have 200lbs of bad meat. 
3. On my way to my folk’s to check on my cook at 2:30am I got pulled over for failure to use my turn signals. Using them is a pet peeve of mine, but I live in a small town and at 2:30 nobody is out. Thankfully no ticket, and I actually work with one of the officer’s wife. 
4. After I pulled and cambro’d the early butts, I left and when I got back home I checked my temperature from my phone only to see my cook chamber temperature wasn’t recovering even with the fan on full. I realized I must have went through more charcoal. Drove back out, dumped a half used bag in it only to find out that the half used bag had a ton of charcoal dust. I contemplated dumping the whole lot and starting fresh, but thankfully the temperature came back. 
5.Went back home and back to sleep around 4, woke up at 6:30 and headed back out. Some of my butts were done, most of them were still in the middle of the stall. Started pulling and panning what I could, I also cranked the pit temp. Ended up pulling some off, panning them and throwing them in the over to finish. Finally got everything to pull temp and managed to finish. 

As good as my cook went last week, this was a complete 180. I’m exhausted and ready for a nap.


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## chilerelleno (Sep 29, 2018)

I see some adversity and PITA moments but nothing really bad.
Heck you had some straight up g'luck coming off the traffic stop without a ticket.
Always count your blessings and roll with the punches.
You pulled it off, that's a success in my book.


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