Advice for Pulled Pork

[lakemirror]

I always foil when the butt gets the colour I want.

I'll put a couple of pints in a Butt that size.

Must......resist.....temptation

[Tucker]

So should I inject during the cooking time or jut at the start?

This is the sauce I used for my injection, could this have caused it to be dry?

Half pint of home made BBQ Sauce
Quater pint of honey
Quarter pint of boiling water

Also do you use a mop sauce over the top during cooking?

[lakemirror]

So should I inject during the cooking time or jut at the start?

Inject before, not during. This should be part of the preparation process, along with trimming and rubbing. I'll let my pork sit for an hour or so after all preparation and before going in the smoker.

This is the sauce I used for my injection, could this have caused it to be dry?

Don't know about making it dry, but it seems to me that it would be too viscous. I do apple juice, sugar, soy sauce, water, it's a very thin liquid solution.

Also do you use a mop sauce over the top during cooking?

I usually don't. I might spray with apple juice if I happen to need to lift the lid but I try never to have to lift the lid until cooking is done.

[Tucker]

OK going to give it another go this week end and will Inject more juice in before I start cooking. I did find though that a lot of the juice I injected just oozed out after ip put it in?

I will try again and let you know the results

[Tucker]

Right this week the pulled pork came out fantastic, I cooked between 250 and 275 for nearly 12 hours.

However I have a question you have all mentioned that you inject more fluid into the butt before cooking, when I inject into the meat most of the fluid just pours straight back out of the hole like a little apple juice water spout. The kids found it funny at one point when the apple juice sprung a leak out of the side of the butt and went all over me

Is there a particular technique I should use?

[All Weather Griller]

I think it depends on the size of the needle, I use a needle that is similiar to type vets use, I find it is much sharper, and much smaller than most food needles. I hold my finger over the hole as I pull the needle out, I do lose some fluid but not as much as what I injected.

[Steve]

I use a brine pump, the needle is massive, see picture below.

brinepump.jpg (31.61 KiB) Viewed 7319 times

I get some fluid comes back out, but generally I can make the butt swell to almost twice its normal size.

I drive the needle in, then give a couple of pumps as I slide it out, I don't remove it fully, re position and go in at another angle. When I do pull it out completely, I put a finger over the hole as the needle come out.

I do occasionally get little spurts that hit me, usually in the face but there's nothing I can do to stop that.

The worst one is when you actually pop the needle through the other side of the meat and then soak the wall when you pump some marinade in

[SmokeShack]

On a recent tv programme, one of the competitors injected the meat whilst wrapped in cling film,to keep the injection in.

Not sure if it works, haven't tried it myself!

[Tucker]

Wow those brine pumps aren't cheap are they! I think I will carry on practicing

[Steve]

The brine pumps are hideously expensive

They're commercial grade kit designed for getting brine into hams for curing. It means you can get spares and really if you buy one it should last you a lifetime. I wouldn't be able to say they're worth the money unless you inject a lot of butts and they're no good for brisket as they're too big. I like having mine, but if I had my time again I might buy a couple of large vets needles and use the rest of the cash on something else.

I've also got a trigger action injector i picked up ion the states for about $50 which is really good, much better than the ones we get over here and probably much better value for money for the average Q'er