My First Pork Butt Smoke


 
Steve_Williams

Steve_Williams

TVWBB Fan
Got up early and lit my fire. Butt on the grill at 7am temp 240'F.

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Left on for 9 hours and then sprayed / wet. Temp varied from 230 - 260.

Took off after 10 hours with internal temp 199'F

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Let rest for 30 minutes. Then pulled the pork and made some slaw, pork sandwiches.

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The pork was a bit dry and needed BBQ sauce to wet.

Tasted great but any tips on keeping it more moist?

Steve
 
It may be overcooked. Did you probe for tenderness or just pull on internal temperature? As long as you have wood on the fire you'll get smoke. It just settles in to a nice thin whisp of blue smoke. How was the smoke ring? When I rest a butt I wrap in HD foil and that helps redistribute the moisture.
 
Thanks for the reply.

I was under the impression that I needed to be at 195-205'f to be done.

It maybe a bit overdone or maybe I was looking for a tip in the process of cooking to help. Do you you foil during cooking? What do you use for moisture? Do you spray during cooking? What do you spray? Etc

Thanks
 
I personally don't foil Butts (but I tried it once) and I don't spray them. I use an Et-73 to read internal temp.. Once it hits about 185 I start probing for tenderness and if you do a search you can get others opinion on that. When the probe slides in with no resistance I double wrap in HD foil and let it rest for at least an hour.

I do inject my Butts with Chris Lilly's Pork Butt inject and everyone likes it. Of course, I did 4 one time and everyone liked it too. If you do a search for pulled pork finishing sauce you'll find a good one that Kevin Kreuger posted. It's a thin sauce that adds moisture and flavor without the thickness of BBQ Sauce.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Steve_Williams:


I was under the impression that I needed to be at 195-205'f to be done.
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Technically done is at 145*. Tenderness is another story. 195 is in the range to be tender enough to pull. I use a thermometer to gauge where my cook is, but will start checking for probe tender around 190. Depending on your cook temp, the time to get from 195 to the temp you pulled it off at could be significant and could overcook.
 
I do mine like Lew except I haven't tried injecting. I agree that you should be determining doneness by probing rather than temperature and the few extra degrees probably resulted in extra moisture loss.

I also use a dry rub with no salt or sugar but I do mix enough oil in to make a slurry. I think the oil helps to preserve moisture until enough fat renders out of the meat to perform this function.

I've probably taken butts off too soon and the result is that they're a little more work to pull, but they'll be moister as well. I'll also add a little water or other source of moisture when I reheat. (Not so much that it gets soupy though...)
 
Thanks for the replies. Long weekend to try again. Will try stopping a bit sooner and foil (off smoker) more than 30 min. It was hard the first time. I was hungry and it smelled so good coming off the smoker!
 
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