Large Pork Butts vs Small Pork Butts


 
David-B said:
I will split a large one in half, I prefer more smoke-bark flavor and large butts can have a bland taste in the center
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Two pieces (or a butterfly) will have more surface area. So faster cook and more bark.

And there’s some variation on that depending on how you split it. I normally cook the boneless shoulders from Costco. Which, being deboned, are already mostly butterflied. So I go with that and lay the shoulder out wide and flat. Since I like max bark.

If you split it into two thicker pieces, you’ll get more bark and quicker cook time than one large thick piece. But not the bark and speed from thinner wide pieces. Chris illustrates below.

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Pork Butt Split In Half - The Virtual Weber Bullet

Pork butt split in half before cooking maximizes dark outside bark & shortens cooking time. This article shows how to do it for best results.
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As I suspected, I got a notification from Google AdSense and had to change the thread title. I know people try to be cute by using a double entendre in their post title, but if it's sexual in nature it trips the AdSense monitoring that limits my ability to place revenue-generating ads on the forum.
 
Timothy F. Lewis said:
I see, I leave them full size, don’t spritz or wrap, I simply wait. Barbecue is not fast, it has its own sense of time and will not be rushed.
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I agree 100%.

Any decent pork butt has plenty of fat and connective tissue to produce a moist, tender and tasty end product. After cooking a lot of butts over the years, usually between ~7 and 14#, I find little difference in the end product as long as I follow the same procedure.
 
I usually go for 10's for pulled pork.
With a 50 to 60% yield I try to make as much as possible that can fit on a grate.
Sliced pork that yield gets up to 70% so I'll go smaller like 7-8.
 
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I will occasionally cut one in half because it’s normally just the wife and I.
We will do carnitas or a crockpot meal out of one of the haves.
I kinda like smoking the half .
 
Hmmm, I almost always load the smoker. So if all the available butts at the market are smallish I put more of them on to fill 'er up. So left overs are fairly constant for me. No worries, it freezes well and I regularly have people ask if I have a pound that I can spare (at least once every week - 10 days.) So leftovers ain't part of the equation. FWIW I frequently have 6 or 7 pound butts and 10 or 11 pound butts on the same WSM load.

But easier / quicker to cook? Instinctively I think you need to keep a closer eye on the internal temp on a smaller butt than a bigger one, as you get toward the end of the cook. But multiple small ones likely (Chris, do the calculus) yield more bark than one large one of the same overall weight. To me, adjusting to the various weights and fat threading on each butt is not different from adjusting to air temp, wind, rain, and screaming neighbor kids. They all affect the day, it's up to you how you deal with it.
 
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