Run Sheet · No. 1 · Fourth of July · Overnight Cook

Two Butts,
One Night

Two pork butts that arrived deboned and flayed open — so they brine laid flat and get trussed back into roasts tonight. Figure ~8½ lb each (they cook by individual weight, not the total). Cider-brined per Hey Grill Hey, no injection needed, smoked on the recteq Deck Boss 900 over Lumberjack Competition Blend, wrapped in butcher paper, rested in a preheated cooler. On the table 2–3 PM, Saturday July 4.

Pit temp 250°F whole cook

Wrap at 160–165° butcher paper

Pull at 203–205° + probe-tender

Est. cook 11–13 hr per 8½ lb boneless

Rest 2–3 hr hold above 140°

Pellets ~1 lb/hr 18 lb hopper

The Shape of the Cook

Expected internal temp from pit-on Friday night to serving Saturday afternoon. The flat stretch is the stall — it's normal, it's evaporative cooling, and the paper wrap is what pushes through it. Hover the line for time and temp at any point.

On the pit Resting in the cooler Times are planning estimates — the probes decide.

Timeline

Built backward from eating at 2–3 PM Saturday, with buffer in the right places. An early finish costs nothing — the cooler holds 4+ hours. A late start can't be fixed.

Today Fri · Jul 3

DoneThu + Fri

Burn-in & shakedown — behind us

Deck Boss burned in, shakedown cook run. The pit is proven and the probes are checked.
One leftover: re-foil the drip pan before tonight if it hasn't happened — no shakedown grease under a 13-hour smoke.

Noondone

In the brine

Both butts in at noon, laid open flat — the deboned interior takes brine directly, which was the injection's whole job. The injector stays in the drawer.
Out at 9:45 PM — call it 10 hours, still comfortably inside the 8–12 hour window. Later out means later on, which lands the rest where it belongs.

9:45 PM

Out of the brine — dry, truss, rub

Pat completely dry, interior faces included.
Optional: a light, salt-shy dusting of rub on the inside faces — the brine already seasoned them, and no binder is needed in there.
Roll each butt into a compact cylinder and truss with cotton butcher twine — loops every 1½–2 inches, tied snug. It should hold its shape picked up by one end; it will only shrink and loosen as fat renders.
Binder (avocado oil spray) and rub on the exterior only, then straight to the pit — no need to rest the rub.

10:30 PMby 11 PM

On the pit 250°F

Fat side down — heat comes from below on a pellet grill.
At least 2 inches of air gap between the roasts or they cook as one block.
One probe per roast, into the thickest solid muscle — not along a seam or fold. Air pockets in a tied roast read low and weird.
Fill the hopper to the top and give it a shake to settle. ~12–13 hr at ~1 lb/hr — one 18 lb fill covers it with a little margin now, but top off when you're first up anyway.

11 PM → 5 AM Overnight — lid stays closed. No spritzing; brined pork doesn't need it, and every peek costs budgeted time.

The Fourth Sat · Jul 4

5–8 AMthe stall

Wrap at 160–165° internal

Set an alarm for 5 AM to check the probes — the stall parks the meat in the 150s–160s for hours. Expected, not a problem.
Wrap each roast tightly in unwaxed butcher paper, ugliest seam side down — juices pool back into the meat instead of out the fold. Twine stays on, probe back into solid muscle, back on the pit.

9:30–11:30 AM

Pull at 203–205° — and probe-tender

No bone means no bone-wiggle test — it's all feel now. The probe should slide in like warm butter in several spots; seams will feel done before the solid muscle does, so trust the thickest, densest section.
Each roast comes off when it is ready, not when its neighbor is.

~11:30 AM→ 2 PM

Rest in the preheated cooler

Preheat: hot water in the cooler 10 min, dump, dry, line with old towels.
Paper-wrapped roasts go in a foil pan — butcher paper leaks, and those juices go back in the pork.
Towels over the top, lid shut. Safe as long as internal stays above 140° — 4+ hours is fine, so finishing early is a feature. Leave the twine on through the rest.

2–3 PM

Pull, dress, serve

Snip the twine — it comes off trivially at 203° — then pull with heat-resistant gloves (nitrile over them). Skim the fat off the pan juices and fold the rest back in.
A splash of the cider vinegar as a finishing sauce brings the brine flavor full circle.

The Brine

Hey Grill Hey's cider brine, doubled: one full batch per bag, one butt per bag. In at noon Friday, out at 9:45 PM — call it 10 hours, comfortably inside the 8–12 hour window. Deboned and laid open, the brine works both faces directly — the injection's job, already done.

Each bag make two

6 cupsapple cider
4 cupswater
2 cupsapple cider vinegar
½ cupkosher salt — table salt: use ⅓ cup
½ cupbrown sugar
½ cupWorcestershire sauce
2 tbspgarlic powder
2 tbsponion powder
⅓ cupSweet Rub — or your rub

Shopping for both bags: one gallon of cider, one 32 oz bottle of ACV, one 10 oz bottle of Worcestershire, 1 cup each salt and brown sugar.

Mixing notes

Dissolve first, brine cold. Stir until the salt and sugar fully dissolve — warming a couple cups of the cider speeds this up, but chill it back down before the pork goes in.
Press the air out of each bag so liquid contacts all sides, then seal.
Bag goes in a pot or pan in the fridge — brine bags leak more often than anyone plans for.
No injection this cook. The flayed-open brine already reached the interior — injecting on top of it risks over-salted pork for zero gain.

Gotchas

The failure modes that showed up over and over in the research, ranked by how much they'd hurt.

Will bite you

The hopper math is tight

18 lb hopper, ~1 lb/hr, ~12–13 hr cook — one fill covers it with a little margin, but not enough to be casual. Full to the brim at pit-on, top off when you're first up. Have two 20 lb bags on hand; overnight cool air and wind push the burn rate up.

Tie snug or it slumps

A trussed roast shrinks and loosens as fat renders — twine that's merely closed at 9 PM is a flopped-open roast at 4 AM. Cotton butcher twine only (synthetic melts), loops every 1½–2 inches, tight enough to hold shape lifted by one end.

Probe the muscle, not the seam

A tied boneless roast has folds and air pockets that read low and feel done early. Probe into the thickest solid section, and make the probe-tender call there — the seams will always say yes first.

They'll run ahead of schedule

Boneless cooks faster than bone-in, and these are ~8½ lb now, not 9½. Expect probe-tender on the early side — don't drop the pit temp to slow them; the cooler eats the slack, and early is the good miss.

Good to know

Two roasts ≠ one 17-pounder

With a 2-inch gap they each cook like a lone 8½ lb roast — same schedule as one. Let them touch and they merge into one slow block.

Weather moves the numbers

Wind and rain raise pellet burn and wobble the pit temp. Check tonight's forecast; pick a sheltered outdoor spot (never a garage).

Temp is a guide, feel is the test

203° that probes like butter beats 205° that doesn't. Check several spots with an instant-read before committing — with no bone, feel is the only doneness test left.

Seam bark will be softer

Normal for a tied roast — the seams steam a little instead of crusting. Wrap ugliest-seam-down so juices pool into the meat, and the paper leaks land in the foil pan where they belong.

If the Plan Slips

Running late 11 AM, still in the 180s

Bump the pit to 275–300°F. The roasts are wrapped, so there's no bark penalty, and it reliably closes the gap by 12:30–1 PM with a shorter-but-real rest intact. This is the lever — don't hesitate to pull it.

Running early done before 9:30 AM

Nothing to fix — and with boneless roasts, this is the likely miss. Into the cooler as planned; a longer rest is genuinely better pork. It holds 4+ hours as long as internal stays above 140°; below that, the oven at 170°F is the backstop.

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