Apologies for the fuzzy lighting in a couple of these; I took them with my cell phone on a hot, humid day and it shows.
Anyway, the sous vide and then finish in the Egg worked out very well. I think my final rub blend was something like salt, pepper, garlic, star anise, some kind of dried peppers (I forget if I used cascabel or ancho) and cumin. I forgot to add the sugar before sealing it up and dropping it into the water bath!
24 hours in the sous vide at 68C (went a bit higher as that was what my Joule app was recommending; I had picked 55C based on medium-rare pork shoulder from one of my cookbooks... but for long sous vides and pork, I like going higher to avoid lactic acid fermentation happening like it can at lower temps). Got the Egg stabilized at about 275F and cooked over indirect heat until internal temp was 205F (about 5.5 hours) with hickory wood in the smoke.
Sauce was the clarified drippings from the sous vide pouches (essentially pork stock at that point), soy sauce, onions, diced tomatoes, grape molasses, more star anise, a bit of ground cinnamon, brown sugar, and a can of Stone Xocozeva (a Mexican hot chocolate stout), cooked down until nice and thick. The buns are from Peter Reinhold's
Artisan Breads Everyday, the fortified roll or sandwich loaf recipe that usually is my go-to for buns.
I was quite pleased and the guests raved about it.
