I smoke a Pork Butt on the Big Green Egg at least once a month.  All my boys love it and my youngest son will fry up leftovers in the mornings with some Taco seasoning sprinkled for an added twist.  It’s delicious with eggs and salsa too!

I started this cook with two 6 pound Boston Butts, they were on sale for $0.99 per pound- literally a steal.  The Egg was preheated to about 250F and the Pork was prepared with a slathering of plain old yellow mustard and liberally coated with BBQ Bros Carolina rub.  This is the second style of their rub that I have used.

A liberal coating of Carolina style BBQ Bros rub

Pork is so easy, it doesn’t really care about the temperature that much and is pretty much ready when the internal temp is between 195-205F.  I like to let mine go to the 205 mark as the meat, fat and tendons are fully rendered at that point.  It makes the meat literally fall apart.  I use meat shredders now as I cook this cut so often, but if you are just getting started you can cheat and use two spaghetti spoons, or two large forks.  You will eventually buy the shredders.

Shredders, you will thank me later

My two hunks took 12 hours with the average temperature at 250F.  The outside was dark in color, the smoke ring evident and the internal meat was succulent with a hint of smoke.  The tasty rub added a nice zing. Bang for the buck this is the best way to get to know your Big Green Egg or other Kamado style smoker.  Try different rubs, different mustards, different hardwood chunks ( I do not soak mine BTW).  I tend to buy a big bag of Mesquite chunks for my smoker and the flavors I get from 4-5 chunks per cook are exactly the level of smoke I like.  I ended up drinking red wine with my dinner, but beer works great too.  Some people get all fancy with foil baths, injections of spice-  the simpler the better in this case.  Salut….

Ready to go!

Some of you may know that my youngest son is a competitive Ice Dancer, as in he trains 6 hours per day right now.  This makes him a very hungry boy, so he asked for and got a smoked Turkey, albeit just the breast as June is not really Turkey season.

I looked up some recipes and thought about how I did them at Thanksgiving time.  Opting for a more smoked dish, I did somethings different this time.  The breast was basically the whole bird, minus the drums and wings, but was pretty hefty at 9 pounds.  The directions on the package said to roast at 350F for 3 1/2 hours.  I covered the bird in a light coating of avocado oil so the skin would crisp, then I rubbed some BBQ Bros California rub that I just got onto the bird.  The Egg had been preheating to 350F and I made sure to add lots of wood chunks before placing the heat diffuser in.

After barely 2 hours, the internal temps indicated the bird was cooked at 180 degrees, which surprised me somewhat.  Next time, I will go for a lower internal temp of 170 at the most.  I removed it from the grill, tented it and left it in the cool oven.  At dinner time, I split the breasts off the carcass and sliced the meat across the grain.  This method makes sure each piece has a section of skin, which was delicious, smoky and crisp all at the same time.  I recommend this technique and will be doing it that way from now on.  Overall a very satisfying dinner that had my older kids clamoring for leftovers in the middle of the night!

Covered in rub, 350 degrees

California Rub

The finished bird

Across the grain!