Sorry. Photobucket is taking forever this morning.
I pulled the butts off at 7:45. Two were done done, one was done but felt like it woudn't be pullable. I thought a rest might get it there (and so opted not to leave it) but the rest only worked for part of the butt, not all of it. Fine with me. (I should have pulled it earlier--that was the original plan--for sliced, but ended up making dinner and not bothering.)
The pullable butts felt as one expects: soft meat, loose bone. Either coould have rested just 30 min or so and been pulled for dinner, but since I decided to go a different route on the dinner front, all rested in my microwave for 2 hours. Both pullables were nicely rendered. (I do not trim butts. The fatcap was still there, of course, but fatty deposits between the muscles were minimal, no different than the ones I low/slow.) The third butt, which I unwrapped last) did have discardable interior fat, as one would expect, but it was also the same as a low/slowed butt pulled early, pre-pullable. Its bone was not loose. One small muscle section was soft and fairly pullable, but I just separated the muscles, got rid of the fat (the dogs will have a field day today) and sliced then chopped the whole thing.
One thing you can expect on a butt cook at the temps I noted is possible hardening of the bark in those spots most exposed to the highest heat. One can minimize this by foiling, of course, but one can also simply chop that bark finer. Another option is simply to flip and rotate during the cook.
High heat butts need not be cooked higher than 300 lid. That temp will significantly shorten the cooktime but pretty much leave all the other elements of a typical low/slow intact, imo. Trending to higher temps from there can alter some variables, as noted, though if time is of the essence one can cook at these higher temps (310-340). Again, remember that foiling is an option--it will further shorten the cook--though I am not a particular fan of foiling butts; just a personal non-preference. All told, I do like low/slow butts but find 285-300 butts quite worthwhile. Higher than that can be fine--there are just more thiings to consider or deal with.
Dinner, btw, salad of butter lettuce, fresh mozz, ripe tomato, drizzled with Morea and old balsamic, 4-peppercorn blend ground on, with Maldon salt; ww linguine with chicken-garlic sausage, hand-frenched green beans and asparagus, onion, wild mushrooms, piquillo chilies and thyme.
My only post-cook butt pics:
Butts 1 and 2, pulled/chopped (I don't care for lots of long, stringy meat; I pull then run the knife over it once), and a close-up:
I didn't take pics of number 3. I took a break after doing 1 and 2 and it was late when I got to that one. As noted, I separated the muscles, removed the interior fat, then just sliced (across the grain, thinly) and chopped (turning the now-sliced muscle perpendicular to where it was oriented, then chopping.
All meat was tossed with
finishing sauce during pulling/chopping, cooled, then packed (thinly) in FS bags and frozen.
