Boston butt wasn't very juicy, why?


 
D

DavidD

TVWBB Super Fan
I cooked a 5.37 lb BB, bone in on the smoker this weekend. I put it on at room temp at 9am and pulled it at 195 degrees 8.5 hours later at 5:30pm. I then wrapped it in foil and put it in the cooler under towels for 3 hours awaiting a later dinner. The temp dropped to 167 degrees. The came was tender though not as tender as some I have cooked, but mostly, I was surprised that it was not more moist, juicy.

Should I have foiled the butt during the final two hours or so? Would that increase the juiciness and tenderness? Don't get me wrong, it was good, but it could have been better and I am looking for tips. as always, thank you.
 
It "just happend". I can't see anything you should have done differently. That is a smaller bone-in roast which might account for it being a little drier when taken to that temp; although 195 is a very reasonable finish temp. Even the overall finish time is within expectation. Possibly you could have tried other methods to test it such as wiggling the bone, etc and maybe the therm wasn't giving you a correct reading. Perhaps that butt simply didn't have as much internal fat as you would expect.

Paul
 
David, the last butt I did I injected with a mixture of apple juice, water, salt and sugar.

Very moist and tender. Also the butts I have cooked at that size (5.5 lbs) have all taken longer to cook (12-15 hours).

John
 
I've done them both with injecting and without injecting and have gotten some good, moist pulled pork. The one thing I did when not injecting though is putting the butt in one of those aluminum trays and put a little apple juice in there around the butt. Maybe around 1/4 inch or so. I have cooked them this way the "low and slow" method and also the "five hour" method. Both times they came out juicy and tender.

Also, temperature is a good way to check if it's ready but again, sometimes I've pulled them off at 190 and some at 198. If you have a bone-in, you should wiggle the bone a little bit to see if it's ready to be pulled. To me, that's one of the better ways of knowing if it's ready to put in the cooler.

Hope this helps.
 
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