My first semi-HH bone-in Pork Butt cook (BEST ONE YET!)


 
S

Sam Borys

TVWBB Member
So this past weekend my wife and I had a garage sale in order to get rid of some of the stuff her and I had accumulated over the years. Since we'd be in our garage all day without much else to do but barter with the neighbours, I thought it'd be a great chance to try another pork butt.


One thing I did differently this time than I did on other cooks is cook at OVER 250 degrees, rather than the 225-250 most people recommend. I figured it was a nice compromise between LNS and HH, and I wanted to get the butt done in time for dinner that night.

SO, I bought a bone-in Pork Butt (around 8lbs) and slathered it in my version of an All-Purpose rub. A little late, at 10:10, I started the smoker (Minion method, full charcoal grate with a full chimney of lit) and let it run for about 20 minutes to burn off a bit of the white smoke (I know this might not make a difference, but I like the idea of laying my meat in a hot smoker, ready to go) and then popped in 4 chunks of Apple Wood.

Anyway, put the meat on and probes in and got to selling junk!




Unfortunately, we got rain almost the entire morning and well into the afternoon so I had to do a bit of jury rigging with my windbreak and some blue SM I had on hand to keep the rain off it and temperatures steady.



I kept an eye on the temperature with my Maverick and made an effort to keep it around 260-270. I noticed the lid temp was showing over 300, but I just chalked that up to the differences everyone notes between their WSMs temperature gauge and ET-732 Mavericks. The main thing I took away from this was that the less concerned you are about how long your meat takes to cook, the higher the chances that you're going to get a better result!

At about 8:30 the meat was stalling at around 175ish and the pit temp was dropping steadily. I knew I was starting to run out of fuel because I hadn't HEAPED the grate like I had intended, and due to the hotter burning smoker I think I went through my coals a little quicker than I expected. I wanted to make sure I didn't leave anything to chance so not only did I add another full chimney of lit coals, but I foiled my butt as well.

Shortly after at about 10:00 (I had pulled the pit temp probe out and was just watching the meat temp probe) and saw that my meat was reading ~192 degrees. I went to the smoker and probed it....BUTTER, BABY!

Pulled it off (Almost dropped it, it was so soft) and let it rest on the kitchen counter for about 45 minutes while I watched the Sunday Nighter, and then came back and pulled it apart.

EASILY the tastiest, most well-cooked and aesthetically pleasing pork but I've done to date. I was a little concerned about the "Twist" test with the bone because there was a lot of meat stuck to it (YOu can see the crack in the shoulder in the pictures below...the whole bone-side of the shoulder was still attached to the bone, but the rest pulled right away from the remainded) but it proved to be an unfounded fear as the meat was tender and juicy all the way through.










Cliffs notes:

-8lb, bone-in Butt
-Trimmed fat cap
-Mustard + All Purpose Dry Rub

-Cold, rainy day (Had to establish windbreak for smoker)
-Full grate of Kingsford Blue
-Minion Method, allowing a slight 20-30 minute coal-burn before putting meat on.
-4 chunks of Apple Wood
-Foiled at ~170 degrees
-12 hour cook time
 
Great looking yard sale , and even better looking pulled pork. I like 275 as a target temp for pork butt , and usually I run in that range. Looks like yours came out great. That smoke ring is a real trophy ! Good work , man.
 
I'm with Frank, I usually smoke at 275 and can get an 8 lb butt done in about 8 hours. Congrats on a great cook! Looks delicious!
 
Kudos. Nice smoke ring. I recently tried my first HH butt smoke and was very, very impressed with the effort. I learned too that after it was done steaming in the foil, to just open it up and let it hang out on the counter for an hour or so to firm up the bark.

I saw you used the mustard technique for the rub. What is your experience with that, as opposed to just covering the butt with rub sans mustard?
 
Beautiful cook Sam, the pork looks superb. I now do all my ribs and butts at 275, come out great for me. As good as any of the low and slows I have done. In fact the ribs are better, at least for me.
I have also done three 8-9lb bone in butts for a graduation party that I did at 325 and they were my best to date. Both flavor and tenderness wise.
 
B Stone said:
Kudos. Nice smoke ring. I recently tried my first HH butt smoke and was very, very impressed with the effort. I learned too that after it was done steaming in the foil, to just open it up and let it hang out on the counter for an hour or so to firm up the bark.

I saw you used the mustard technique for the rub. What is your experience with that, as opposed to just covering the butt with rub sans mustard?
Click to expand...



The only reason I use mustard is so I can get more rub on. I tried without mustard and found that while the surface of the meat still holds the rub you can't quite get that thick, LAYERED rub on the way you can with a coating of mustard.

The mustard loses it's flavour in the cook too, so all you're left with is a nice thick coat of dark brown bark over the whole piece of meat.
 
Bill Schultz said:
Beautiful cook Sam, the pork looks superb. I now do all my ribs and butts at 275, come out great for me. As good as any of the low and slows I have done. In fact the ribs are better, at least for me.
I have also done three 8-9lb bone in butts for a graduation party that I did at 325 and they were my best to date. Both flavor and tenderness wise.
Click to expand...

I find that if it's a full grate of charcoal, my WSM kind of automatically gravitates to 275 as a temp anyway. I have the vents anywhere from 1/4 open to 1/2 open and it will fluctuate up and down slightly but will stay in that temp range. I had to close the vents down to get it to that ~265ish temperature I was shooting for.

I might try cooking my next one at 275-300 just to see what happens. When a piece of meat is cooking for 8 hours PERIOD, I can't see things going wrong.

Thanks for all the compliments guys!
 
I'm glad some of us are in the 250- 275-300 deg range.
There is no right or wrong way to do the BBQ. The most important is what works, and Sam you found that out on you're own.
Prop's to you Brother and thank's for the details :wsm:
 
Looks like it turned out great for you. I cook most of my pork at 275 or so but don't consider it high heat. For me high heat is 325-375. The ones I cook in that range I usually foil to even out the cooking. For pulled pork there isn't a huge difference in the end results between the two. The high heat ones sometimes have a little more fat not cooked out.
 
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