Doneness Question For First PorK Butt


 
J

Jim Nicholas

New member
I smoked two butts, one 6 pounds and one 7 pounds, with the upper grill temp at 330 to 350 constantly. I started at 9:00 p.m. and by 2:00 p.m. they were both in the 178 to 180 range for internal meat temperture. This seemed wrong to me and I assumed I was measuring the temps incorrectly and pulled them to rest for an hour and a half.

So naturally I ended up with one of 3 possible situations. Undercooked, just right, or overcooked. I'm not sure what the result of overcooked would be but I understood it that undercooked would result in pork butt that is hard to pull. Mine shredded wonderfully just uisng a kitchen fork and a steak prong.

The one thing I did not do was trim any fat off the butt for prep. There was a layer on one side and not the other so I figured I was being lazy but finding the meat to take temp shouldn't be problem.

Any input on if I lucked out and did it correctly?
 
'Done' for pulled pork is when the meat is tender and pullable. People vary on how much they like the rendering to have occurred, so there is a window, but, regardless, 'done' is tender, moist, pullable, irrespective of how much fat may remain in the butt.

A specific temp might correlate with whatever notion of done a cook might have, but it doesn't indicate it, in reality. I have had many cooks similar to what you've described. Often, in those cases, the butts plateaued a second time, in the 180s, and I've just let them go. Though the internal temps never budged, the time the spent sitting there--still cooking--took them to tender. That's what gets any barbecue to tender: sufficient time relative to the cut and its internal structure, at whatever temps one is cooking at.

(I don't trim butts either.)
 
Oh--and congrats on your first butt success!


(Overcooked, btw, is pullable but dry--the meat shreds but has lost moisture. Yours sounds just great.)
 
this is were experiance and practice comes in. kinda depends on what you want. plus the meat varies also. but as a very general rule, i take mine to about 180 to slice and about 200 to pull. butt is very forgiving and a great meat to get some experiance under yer belt. if you liked it then it was a success.
 
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