1st time pork shoulder (inferior to pork butt?)


 
C

Christopher Sockrider

New member
I have a 9 lb Boston blade pork shoulder. I'm a year into ownership of my WSM 22 and have been very pleased, but have not cooked a pork shoulder. Is there a reason so many topics here are about the pork butt? My local grocery has plenty of pork shoulders but I don't usually see pork butts. I plan to cook it following one of the simple topics on the front page for pork butts. I welcome any advice or opinions.

Chris
 
Sounds to me like you may have a butt.
Names are confusing but Boston usually refers to the top or "butt" portion of a whole shoulder.
Picnic or arm roast is the lower part.
Does your shoulder have skin on it and tapered?
To be clear, I'm not questioning your knowledge of meat cuts.
 
Like Bob says. Butt has no skin and is usually a rectangular and fatty (inside threads, none outside) piece of meat. Picnic is lower leg and has skin, fat and tapers. Butt is preferable. Leg bone at tapered end is very obvious.
 
They call a butt as a shoulder or blade roast around here. If you did have a whole shoulder you would have the butt and picnic as one piece and the weight would be alot more then 9#.
Only once or twice have I seen a butt labled as Boston butt. Pork butt for tamales I see at the Mexi-mart.
Tim
 
Thank you for the replies. I have a pork butt. The packaging confused me.

For my second mistake, I realized this morning that my butt needed to go on the smoker last night. After a bit of thinking, I cut it in half and added rub to the newly exposed parts. On the WSM it went and I'll see how long it takes. I've put it on just before 7:00 and plan my to feed my family diring the early game today (12:00-3:00).
 
That's a good plan on cutting the butt in halve or even quarters for making a quick cook.
Up the temps in the 300 range and foil if you need to and you will be golden.:wsm:

Tim
 
After 5 hours cook and one hour rest in foil, I had two nice pieces. We are one and I took the op there one and put it in the oven at 225 for another 6 hours to see what happens.

The first one turned out great. It wasn't cooked long enough to pull apart, but it cut fine into tenderloin style steaks about the size of a small hamburger bun. The flavor was quite good. I used a simple over the counter product called "butt rub" overnight. Today I added some yellow mustard and more run before the smoker. That was it. It made a nice bark.

I've just taken the second piece out of the oven and I'm looking forwards to trying it after a rest. Thanks for the responses.
 
might I suggest next time, give yourself plenty of time. I put two boston butts about 10lb each on the wsm at 7:30 am, and they were not done until 9:30 pm. Maintained 225-240 on my pit, around 330-4 the temp started dropping so I added some coals. Eventually the butts hit the stall, where they got stuck at an internal of 165. At that point you can ride it out, and wait, or you can wrap them in foil to help it cook faster. This time I wrapped it. Sometimes I dont. Anyway, I wrapped them, and with in another 45-1hr the temp started rising again on the meat. Anything higher then 195 is considered done for pork. I personally wait until it hits 203 to pull it off. This way it shreds nicely, and the fat is rendered for the most part. When you shred it, take your time to remove any gelled fat globs in the meat because theyre just nasty to eat. Enjoy!!!!
 
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