Butt What??


 
S

Steve C.

New member
Ok, I've done brisket, all types of ribs, turkey, and chicken. Now, for the piece d'resitance, I'm going to do my first butt. I researched different cooking options, rubs, etc on this site, as I always do, BUTT I still have a few questions.

1. just to make sure, I bought two 7lb pork shoulders at Costco. Shoulder is the same as butt, right?

2. I plan on an overnight cook starting friday around 10pm. With cooking, and storing wrapped in a cooler, is good bet to say we can eat around 4pm saturday?

3. to thaw the 2 7lb'ers for friday night. How soon should I take them out of the freezer and into the fridge?

As always, thanks for the excellent advice!!
 
1. Yes, a whole shoulder is a butt and a picnic. Chances are good you have a butt, according to that weight. And I have never heard of anyone buying picnics from wholesale clubs, so...

2. Sounds like a good plan.

3. From frozen, thawing in the refrigerator, count on 12 hours per pound. So 3-1/2 days. I assume you mean next Friday night, so early Tuesday evening ought to be good.
 
Originally posted by Steve C.:
Ok, I've done brisket, all types of ribs, turkey, and chicken. Now, for the piece d'resitance, I'm going to do my first butt. I researched different cooking options, rubs, etc on this site, as I always do, BUTT I still have a few questions.

1. just to make sure, I bought two 7lb pork shoulders at Costco. Shoulder is the same as butt, right?

2. I plan on an overnight cook starting friday around 10pm. With cooking, and storing wrapped in a cooler, is good bet to say we can eat around 4pm saturday?

3. to thaw the 2 7lb'ers for friday night. How soon should I take them out of the freezer and into the fridge?

As always, thanks for the excellent advice!!
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Acutally, not to disagree with Doug, but a shoulder and a butt are not the same thing! A butt is labled as a "Boston Butt" and a shoulder is labled as "pork shoulder".

As Doug said, it is the picnic and the butt in one piece...not the same thing as just the butt!
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Not to disagree with Greg who is not disagreeing with Doug, but 'pork shoulder' in many places in the country is exactly the same as butt. Many places, to avoid confusion with the rear end of the animal, label butt 'shoulder'. Whole shoulder is butt plus picnic. But a 7-pounder is unlikely to be a whole shoulder.
 
Only one thing to add with the prevoius 3 agreeable posters....

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Butt/Shoulder/Picnic...whatever you have is perfect. It will come out great!

-Matt
 
If your butt's are frozen. It's too late to defrost them in the fridge for tonight. You can put them in a big tub of water for defrosting in a few hours.

If you are bbq'ing next friday, putting them in the fridge on Tuesday sounds good.

For this much meat, I try to buy just a few days before the cook so the meat doesn't have to go in the freezer.
 
If you do the water defrosting method, make sure the water is cold, not warm or hot. Technically speaking from health department regulations, this is a safe method for defrosting, but there needs to be a drip and runoff of the water, as in one section of a third compartment sink.

Although I have a triple basin sink in my kitchen, I personally for home use, do not drip the water. I change it every hour or so, rotating the meat constantly.

You can take the meat out of the freezer a week beforehand and leave it in the fridge. The cryovac packaging will allow your meat to remain fresh for up to a week, maybe longer. I had cryovac baby backs last for two weeks.

I did the same thing you are planning for Smoke Day, only I started at 9 p.m., and they got pulled off around 9:30 a.m. the next morning. I foiled and put in the cooler for that afternoon. Then I put on the spares for 7 hours. Everything was perfect.
 
I disagree. (sorry cant help myself) I would start it at 8pm unless you plan on cooking at higher temps then say 220-230 overnight as I do. My PBs take me 20-22 hours to reach 190-200 internal, but I do at least 2 butts every cook. That could very well be the reason mine takes so long. Plus I still use water. Ive had such good luck with water, I just cant change to sand.
 
I also use water. I had two butts, totalling 12.5 pounds this last time. I think my temp averaged 230-240. Maybe that's why it took a little over 12 hours. I also couldn't find bone-in.
 
Thawing - if your cooking tonight, good luck, water is your only hope. If your cooking next week, assume 4 days in the fridge to thaw.

We're having a party at 4:30 tomorrow. I'll fire my bullet up at about 10:30, and get the butts on by 11:30. They'll get pulled sometime between 1:00 and 2:30p tomorrow. That timing has worked well for me in the past, although I'm not afraid to let my butts chug at 230° for 5 hours and then run the temperature up for the remainder of the cook.
 
Originally posted by K Kruger:
Not to disagree with Greg who is not disagreeing with Doug....
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Not to disagree with Kevin, who is not disagreeing with Greg, who is not disagreeing with Doug, but...

OK, I have nothing to disagree with. I just couldn't resist.
 
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