Oh my pork!

Well, it's potluck time again. I made a suggestion to the pastor's wife that our next "First Sunday" potluck theme be BBQ (the church has a potluck on the first Sunday of each month). I had been getting interested about how to smoke meat on our charcoal grill and thought it would be fun to make a big pan of pulled pork for the dinner. She thought it was a great idea, so I proceeded to buy 13 pounds of pork butt! I didn't stop to think how I was going to fit it all on the grill! Ha ha!

I started researching various recipes and soliciting input from Dad. In the end, I used 2 cookbooks (Dino BBQ and Cook's Illustrated BBQ cookbook), 1 website (Perfect Pulled Pork Recipe) and Dad's input to get through.

I also made Dinosaur BBQ "Mutha" sauce, red onion pickles, bbq pasta salad and Dad's cole slaw. Christian talked me out of making the strawberry cream cake, so I just took 2 pounds of strawberries.

I had a lot of fun going through the smoking process and seeing/tasting the results. I tried documenting the process in pictures.

On Friday night, I tied the roasts, rubbed them with oil and Dinosaur BBQ red rub and wrapped them in plastic wrap.

I was barely able to fit them all on the grill. I kept flipping and rotating them around. I smoked them for 5 hours.

After 5 hours, I wrapped them in foil and put them back on the grill. At that point, I got tired of tending to the temperature and moved them into the oven for another 4 or 5 hours.

Cook's Illustrated suggests letting the roasts rest in a brown paper bag for an hour. I sent Christian out to get some groceries and he came back with these huge lawn bags. At first I was skeptical. Then I found that all the roasts fit perfectly inside one bag and that bag fit perfectly on a cookie sheet. Perfect!

The final yield (that is large roasting pan - for up to 25 pounds). The small bowl was for my sandwich. Yum!

I covered the pork with aluminum foil and put it in the fridge. On Sunday morning, I let the pork sit out for an hour. Per a suggestion I found on a great website, I mixed in 1 cup of water with 6 T of melted butter and then warmed it up in a 200 degree oven. At church, I put it in my largest crockpot (6 quart) and it mounded over the top - with just enough room for the lid to sit on top. I didn't stir any BBQ sauce in it at all and it was perfectly moist when it was time to serve.

Did you think that 13 pounds was excessive? Well, luckily I tried out a sandwich Saturday night after I pulled the pork. I was the last person through the line for the dinner and I was barely able to scrape 2 tablespoons of meat scraps off the spoon - just enough to taste it and see that it was still moist! Yay! The Mutha sauce and strawberries were all gone, too. There were leftovers from the pickles (I made a triple batch), pasta salad and cole slaw, but I was very pleased with the outcome.

The whole dinner was great. People brought brisket, chicken and sausage, potato salad, cole slaw, beans, fruit salad, chips and desserts. There were 4 beautiful tossed salads that I didn't even get a chance to taste. We are very blessed with so many wonderful cooks. Each potluck is a great time of fellowship.

Dad - thank you for all your help!
Allison - the pickles were a BIG hit and lots of people asked for the recipe. Thank you!