Foiling butt at 170 for how long?

[DavidD]

I plan to smoke a 9lb butt overnight but when it reaches 170-175, will foil, then thought I would remove from foil and let it dry out a bit.

For ribs, I've seen the 3/2/1 method, but for butts, not sure how long I should foil and at what temp or time should I remove from foil to dry the bark?

 

[Tom Barineau]

Davidd--I have never foiled a butt. An excellent source on here told me to pull it at 170 if you intend to slice it or 190 if you plan to pull it. I would think these temps would apply with or without foil--the foil should just make it get to the higher temp quicker. Just my humble opinion. Hopefully some of these other folks will chime in.

 

[Scooter B]

Foil.... Butts... BLASPHEMY!!! haha

Only reason to do this would be to speed up the process. Butts have so much fat and moisture that using foil for "tenderness" is really overkill.

I run my butts unfoiled the whole time and pull at around 185-187 (190 is the book) on my thermometer (which i believe reads low.

I belive that if you are pinched for a time a better approach would be to bump the heat up halfway through the cook to 285'ish. This will still give you a nice product but take a couple hours off the cook time.

 

[Chuck R]

I would cook to 180, no foil, and then start testing for doneness every hour. 190 is just a guideline. Two hours ago, I pulled two shoulders off the WSM that read 190, and they were perfect, but I started checking at 180. The last butts that I did were cooked to 190 without any prior testing for doneness, and they were overcooked and dry.

To test for doneness, pull on the bone if it has one, and when the bone pulls out freely without resistance or any meat clinging to it, it is done. I did boneless today and, to test for doneness, I took a two pronged barbecue fork, stuck in, in several places, and twisted the fork. If there is no resistance and the fork spins easily wherever you checked, its done.

When I remove the pork, I double wrap them in heavy foil and put them in a preheated (hot water) ice chest for an hour.

 

[Matt_G]

As to how long to foil, here is what I did last smoke with 2 butts around 7lbs each:

I started the butts at around 225 and ramped up to 300-325 after 2 hours and kept it there for the rest of the cook. I pan+foiled at 170 and 175 internal and then it took 1.5 hours to hit 195. I pulled 'em and set in a cooler. Temp rose to around 202 within a half hour in the cooler. Total time to 202 was 7.5 hours. Meat was perfect to my taste - uniformly brimming with moisture and the fat was nicely rendered out. There was about 1/2 cup liquid in each pan and that was about 3/4 fat.


I don't have a way to recover the crunchiness in the bark, but next time I'm going to try removing the butts from the pans and setting them on a cooling rack after they have been resting in the cooler long enough for their temp to level off. This could tighten and dry the bark a bit.