The Seattle snow we received forced our holdiay party to be cancelled…too much snow and ice to be driving to a friends home.  We had planned on bringing pulled pork to this event (where my husband is a manager and pulled pork was his suggestion)…which means we were up at 5:30 this morning in the freezing snow to get this bbq party started.  I've written about smoked pork butt/shoulder here before… but since I have more time on my hands–all bbq'd up and no place to go, it's nice to really take the time a dish like this deserves.

At 5:30 am this morning, my hubby got the Big Green Egg going at 300 degrees.  We added apple wood chips that were soaked in water and apple juice.  He then inserted the place setter with the legs up.  On top of the place setter we have a tin pan with apple juice and a whole garlic clove that has been cut in half with the grid setting on top of the place setter.

I should back up a bit and talk more about the prep for the pork butts.  I have two 4.5 pound butts that were in a brined for about 10-12 hours in a mixture of molasses, sea salt and water.  I allowed them to drip off the brine in a collander before I rubbed a mixture of spices, including Butt Rubb and Tom Douglas's Turkey Rub (because I like the sweetness).  After they were rubbed up, I wrapped them tightly in saran and popped them into the fridge overnight.  Back to getting these butts on the grill….

The two pork butts were placed on our prepared big green egg by 6:00 am with the thought that we'd be pulling them off by about 1:30 pm for the afternoon Chritmas party we were attending.  Good thing the party cancelled…the pork was not ready!  The BGE temperature dropped to about 170 when we woke up (we had gone back to bed) at 8:00am.  I was convinced the coals were out but by opening the grates, the BGE quickly reheated to about 275 and we backed the temperature back around 220. 

At about 4:30, one butt was at 180 internal degrees and I pulled it off (I'm so impatient)…letting it rest for a half hour wrapped in foil.  The other pork butt stayed on until it reached 200 degrees internally and IT'S WORTH THE WAIT!