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Once again, my wife made me look generous by volunteering me to provide pulled pork for a horse farm picnic celebrating the 4th of July. Due to the number of people, I figured I would have to smoke 4 Boston Butts to make sure everyone had happy stomachs.

I realize the 4th of July is about Hot Dogs, but living down south I've learned that every holiday is a reason for true BBQ. And the cheapest way to feed a lot of people is with pulled pork sandwiches. I was never a fan of pulled pork up north because it never tasted the way I've learned to cook it down here. If I'd learned this 20 years ago, I'd be 200 lbs heavier than I am.

Getting it done on the Bubba Keg Grill (now the Big Steel Keg Grill) / Smoker

I was pleasantly surprised, after careful measuring, that I could get at least four Boston Butts on the Bubba Keg Grill (now the Big Steel Keg Grill) . Some of the guys that have been testing the Keg out are either not cooking with indirect heat, or are using a pizza stone on the main cooking grate as a diffuser. Fortunately, I have a BGE platesetter that fits perfectly, so that's what I use. The concern I had was that using this means the lower cooking grate will be in it's highest position. That makes the top cooking grate get up there in the hood.

After some measuring, I determined that there was plenty of room. Actually, more room than I needed. But, when I put the two pork butts on the top grate, I did have to jockey them around because the probe for the thermometer is 1.5" to 2" long and it was hitting a piece of meat!

Back to the Pulled Pork

Once again, I used the world champion recipe for pork shoulders from Big Bob Gibson's BBQ Book: Recipes and Secrets from a Legendary Barbecue Joint. After some experimenting (and the comments last night), this is one I'll be sticking with for awhile. It includes a great rub, and also an injection. So, there's a little more prep work but I'm telling you, the results are worth it. The book has scores of great recipes (not just barbecue, but side dishes as well) and I really recommend it.

Since I had to serve up the pulled pork at 4 pm the next day, I wasn't too worried about timing. However, I was worried about going to sleep with the Bubba Keg Grill (now the Big Steel Keg Grill) . I've had a few problems where the temperature would run up if I didn't have the vents slit. And I've had problems where doing this would starve the fire. So, once again, I found out that I should err on the high temp side since the Keg went out during the night.

The problem is that if I had run it at 275° F it would have been done too early. I just wasn't prepared to get up at 3 am to do this. Anyway, at 5:45 I found the coals had gone out. It was still hot in the Keg, but much longer and I would've been in trouble. So, I got the fire going again and waited to get these guys up to 190°F internal.

The bottom two pork butts get there in about 2 more hours, giving them a total cooking time of 10 hours (some of that with no fire).

The bottom ones were already at 180°F at this point while the top two were still at 160°F. Here's a prettier shot.

I removed the bottom two pork butts and moved the two top ones down to the bottom. They took another 2 hours to get to 190°F. Not sure if this had to do with the fire going out, but it could've been highly inconvenient.

I began digging into the first two after letting them rest for 30 minutes under foil. I sliced some of it to get it started, and other parts I just pulled apart with a fork. Here's how that process looked. Believe me, I was eating while I worked!

This was the first rip. If you haven't tried Big Bob Gibson's recipe, I'm telling you, you're missing something special! Please don't try this in your oven! Get a smoker!

This was a slice that I eventually shredded. See that nice smoke ring? Yes, there's a little fat there, but I picked it out.

I have to say that the bark was especially tasty. People that pick through that are insane.

Did I mention the smoke ring? That's the best part of pulled pork, right there! Look up!

And now you know what pulled pork looks like. I got many compliments on it. One guy even said it was better than Williamson Bros. here in Atlanta. Wouldn't know because I haven't tried theirs, but I do know they use wood fired pits. Maybe it's the recipe I used.

One other thing.

I made up a batch of special barbecue sauce. It was recipe that was supposed to be a clone of the Bone Suckin' Sauce. Didn't taste the same but it was also a hit. I thought it was too oniony, but it did go well with this pulled pork, so maybe it wasn't so bad after all.

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