Thread: Cajun Apple Butter Pulled Pork

Got up early and made a hearty Saturday morning breakfast, then I decided to run out to one of our independent local butchers, South Alabama Custom Meats.
I purchased some fresh and frozen meats, a nice bone-in Pork Butt, two skin-on sections of Pork Belly and a nice hunk of Goat.
One pork belly and the goat went into the freezer for next weekend.


I came home and defrosted one hunk of pork belly, I prepped the skin by scoring and salting, now it's air drying and I'm gonna cook it up tomorrow and will be aiming for some cracklin skin.
The Butt I immediately prepped for the smoker with a rinse/pat down, injected with homemade 'Cajun Apple Butter' and rubbed with my homemade Pork Rub.
Into the smoker at 12:30pm, smoking it at 225°-250° over Cherry.
Gonna be up late to catch this one when it's done and ready to pull.
I'm also going to whip up some 'SoFlaquer's Finishing Sauce'.


Homemade Cajun Apple Butter Injection
2 sticks of butter
3T Cajun spice
2T granulated garlic
1C Apple juice

Inject, Rub and Smoke









Smoker settled in at 235°-240°, that works for me.


7:30pm
7 hours in and this Butt has been stalled at 148-149° for the last 2.5-3 hours.


8:00pm
Booyah! Climbed 2° in half an hour and broke 151°.
Gonna be sometime in the wee hours of the morning.
C'mon pork butt, go baby go!


12:00am
Man, I do believe this is going to be my longest Butt cook ever.
11.5 hours in and it's only at 167°.
Temp has averaged 140°, I nudged it up to 260°.
So far it's averaging two hours per pound, at this rate it'll be an eighteen hour cook and done at 630am.
Hopefully the temp will come up faster after it climbs past 170°.
I just nudged the heat up towards 250° to give a lil'kick in the pants.


4:20am
Decided to get some sack time at 0100am, tapped it back down to 240°.
Got up just now to check it, 242°/183°, back to bed and snuggle up to Mama.


6:30am
Gonna be a twenty hour cook, I'm eighteen hours in, at 193° and it's not exactly probe tender or bone wiggly yet.
That's being measured by two different therms, and yes they've been tested recently.
SLOOOOW PIG!

7:45am
Well okeydokey, it's finally done and resting.
At 19 hours/197° it probed butter tender, tried to pick it up off the grate by hand and the muscle groups were coming apart.
Grabbed my BIG spatula and got that baby inside, performed the mandatory, chef certified, taste testimg (yummy!) and wrapped up it.
Pulled pics in a hour or so.






Whipped up a batch of, link >>> Soflaquer's Finishing Sauce for Pulled Pork



Here in a lil'while I'll get the pork belly in the smoker and around 12:00pm I'll start a pan of my,
link >>> Green Bean Casserole
Aiming to have a late lunch ready for everyone at around 1:30pm

9:30am
Tender Pulled Pork