The Show MUST Go On...

[parallel]

In the wake of Mrs. Parallel's recent medical issues, many of our friends and family who had RSVP'd for our son's seventh annual birthday bash (this year a week early due to Easter being so early) wondered if the party would be called off. Ha! Not a chance... Mrs. Parallel is a proper southern gal, therefore hospitality and entertaining is in her blood. She was incredulous when they suggested that it might be too much of a strain for her to carry on with the party plans, mostly because I'm doing a large chunk of the cooking this year even though crawfish are nearly as rare as ammo this season.

I'm about to get things set up for an overnight low and slow. On the menu is two roughly 8lb Boston butts; one dusted with dizzy dust and a traditional Southern BBQ sauce and the second a pseudo Cuban "mojo" butt. The party kicks off at 1:00 PM so I'll be looking to get the butts on the egg by about midnight.

 

[parallel]

I'm burning the Midnight (more like 2AM) oil getting ready for the big party. The first eight pound Boston butt was rubbed with Dizzy Pig Dizzy Dust Course (my first time using Dizzy Dust).

Then the second eight pound Boston butt came out of the mojo marinade and they both went on the 250° Big Green Egg.

I'm going to babysit this thing for a while longer then it's off to bed for me. My maverick ET-732 will alert me if the temp of the BGE goes below 230° or higher than 265° so no more up and down all night checking the temp

 

[surfingwta]

My maverick ET-732 will alert me if the temp of the BGE goes below 230° or higher than 265° so no more up and down all night checking the temp

These look awesome and no doubt will turn out amazing.
I've had an Egg for many many years and just love it myself.
This thermometer you use, you can set a range?

 

[parallel]

These look awesome and no doubt will turn out amazing.
I've had an Egg for many many years and just love it myself.
This thermometer you use, you can set a range?

Yeah, you can set a range for high and low temp on grill/smoker and high temp (done temp) on meat. Right now I'm at 275° grill level and I've been at 174° internal temp (plateau) for a while now. I struggled all night to stabilize the temperature. The Maverick alarmed a half dozen times during the night because the temp went out of spec, so much for no more up and down all night. Even so I was up and down twice as much without it, at least this time when I was up it was for a reason. I'm contemplating bumping the temperature up to 300° to break through this plateau as I've only got two and a half hours to get it it up to 195°.

 

[Unclee1]

How long have they been on at this point and how much longer do you cook?

 

[parallel]

How long have they been on at this point and how much longer do you cook?

I had put them on at about 12:45 AM and they had been on for about 9 - 9 1/2 hours when I posted that with about 2 1/2 hours left until guest arrived at 1:00 PM. The general rule of thumb when trying to time these types of cooks is 1 1/2 hour per lb of the largest piece of meat. One cooks to temperature with meat, so once a smaller piece of meat reaches temperature (in this case 195° was the goal) you take that one off the cooker and wrap it in foil, then a heavy towel and place it in a small cooler to hold)

After my last post I had bumped the BGE up to 275° (it creeped up to 282° as it broke the plateau) and it finished with about 15 minutes to spare. I left it on until it hit 200° internal temperature then I halved the two butts, foil, towel(s) and coolered one half of each. The other half of each butt was then pulled and served directly. Those who came on time got to eat fresh off the cooker pulled pork, but even those who came later got to eat good hot pulled pork. When I took the last half out of the cooler six hours later the internal temperature was STILL 132°.

The Dizzy Dust Course dry rub was great. The Mojo marinade was good, but next time I'll marinade it for at LEAST 36 hours. At first I thought I might not have enough pulled pork for the amount of guest we had, but as is our usual we WAY overdid the amount of food we had. We had a nacho bar, a hotdog bar, homemade meatballs for meatball subs, homemade tamale balls, seven layer taco dip and other dips with an assortment of chips and crackers to dip with, and a plethora of veggie and fruit trays. We practically forced people to take food with them when they left the party and I'll STILL be eating leftovers for the next week.

All in all it was a great party that lasted well into the evening with LOTS of good friends and family and at least 40 kids (Avengers).