Need more bark for first butt of the winter..


 
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Willie (Green Bay)

TVWBB Member
Typically I use regular Kingsford blue brickets in my wsm with the bowl filled with water and I get the results shown in the picture. I’d like to get a darker, thicker bark if I could. What can I do differently to achieve that?

Also, temps here in WI are hovering in their 20’s-30’s and this will be an overnight smoke. Should I avoid filling the water bowl?

I use a Fireboard and fan to maintain my temps.

FYI, if I need to alter my rub to get more bark, I need something/recipe without sodium.
 

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All the warmer months I used water, but since it has got cold I have gone dry foil wrapped pan. I did a pork butt with air temps in the high 20s a few weeks ago and my WSM 14 ran almost exactly the same as it did with water in pan during summer. I would go waterless for sure.

For the darker thinker bark, I have three thoughts, that you my already be doing.
1. If I want a nice dart thick bark I would not wrap, I would leave that butt naked the would cook.
2. I would go heavier on the seasoning to really create a coat before I put it on.
3. I would go with a rub that has a higher raw sugar, brown sugar contains to help create that crust.
A bonus thought cook at a 275 not a lower temp.
 
If youve got a lot of fat, trim most off. You dont eat seasoned fat cap (or maybe you do.....but I dont...)
No water, dont wrap. 250-275F. Or wrap with paper, not foil. Anywhere that has thick fat... won't make bark. Bark is what we want.


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@MartinB Thanks for the info....and yes, i like the fat cap!

Here's my plan for tonights cook based on your comments and some other reading i did last night. I'm going to run my water bowl empty and i'm going to do something inside the bowl to keep the fat from burning in it. Ill trim the fat cap down a little bit, but i'll run it with fat cap down.

I don't normally foil it during cooking, just after the fact when i put it in the cooler to hold till dinner time. I do have paper so i'll use that instead. My butt smokes usually take ~14hrs when it's warm out. Dinner is at 5pm on Saturday. So i plan to still start at midnight like usual in case the cold slows things down. If i get a nice bark and wrap it in paper and cooler it for 4-5hrs am i gonna loose my bark even with the paper?
 
I used this trim on my last butt cook and was very happy with the additional bark it produced. Butterflying the butt would produce the most surface area for bark, but that's not an easy task on a bone in butt. This trim from Chef Tom is the next best thing, IMO.

Chef Tom also uses course rubs to get better bark. I watched one of his pork butt cooks where he used two rubs, one more for flavor, the other was course to provide more bark.

And I don't think pork butt can be overly seasoned. Its such a large hunk of meat that heavy coat of rub doesn't matter.

Here's the trim, he opens up a seam between muscles and cleans it out. When the butt shrinks during the cook, the inside of the seam becomes exposed for bark.

 
I think Chef Tom's method is the way I'm going to go my next cook. I've seen people simply cut them in half for more bark as well. Once our grocery story had them really cheap and they were 5 lb chunks you could tell were butts split in half. 2 5 lb sections are going to have more bark than 1 10 lb Butt. The butterfly approach in the videos above works well because you can trim some of the stuff out ahead of time you don't want in the final product. Then there's this video which completely blew my mind:

 
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What's doubly amazing about the bark on Chef Tom' Carolina butt cook, is he did that on a kamodo that has almost no air flow. Air flow/convection helps build bark. I'd like to see that same cook on a stick burner that has tons of air flow.
 
Dustin Dorsey said:
I think this is the way I'm going to go my next cook. I've seen people simply cut them in half for more bark as well. Once our grocery story had them really cheap and they were 5 lb chunks you could tell were butts split in half. 2 5 lb sections are going to have more bark than 1 10 lb Butt. The butterfly approach in the videos above works well because you can trim some of the stuff out ahead of time you don't want in the final product. Then there's this video which completely blew my mind:

Click to expand...


Yes, that is pretty amazing, especially after the cook and they have all the muscles laid out on a table. That's pretty serious stuff.

There's a guy over at the BBQ Brethren who does this ... link is fixed now

https://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4388881&postcount=9

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So i just did Chef Tom's method of trimming...both the fat cap and that slit by the shoulder bone. Crazy how much fat you you clean off with this method! Only issue i found is that after cleaning that slit and then trimming the fat cap off, the meat almost splits all the way through at that slit. My butt was small to start with (7lb i think) so that might be the reason. We shall see how it turns out!!
 
I don't normally foil it during cooking, just after the fact when i put it in the cooler to hold till dinner time. I do have paper so i'll use that instead. My butt smokes usually take ~14hrs when it's warm out. If i get a nice bark and wrap it in paper and cooler it for 4-5hrs am i gonna loose my bark even with the paper?

I often get almost too much bark. No water, no wrap, cook for 14+ hours. No spritzing during the overnight part of the cook.

If I do that, 4-5 hours of cooler hold has no impact on the thick bark.

I will try the butterfly trim on my next cook. I do basically the same thing for brisket and really like the results -- more surface area, more rub, more bark, faster cook.
 
Jim C in Denver said:
I don't normally foil it during cooking, just after the fact when i put it in the cooler to hold till dinner time. I do have paper so i'll use that instead. My butt smokes usually take ~14hrs when it's warm out. If i get a nice bark and wrap it in paper and cooler it for 4-5hrs am i gonna loose my bark even with the paper?

I often get almost too much bark. No water, no wrap, cook for 14+ hours. No spritzing during the overnight part of the cook.

If I do that, 4-5 hours of cooler hold has no impact on the thick bark.

I will try the butterfly trim on my next cook. I do basically the same thing for brisket and really like the results -- more surface area, more rub, more bark, faster cook.
Click to expand...
Yeah if I no wrap for the whole smoke then the rest in foil doesn't effect that thick bark. I have run into the opposite issue my family does not like the thick bark so I have started to wrap just as it starts to come out of the stale. That creates softer bark which is of the request of my family.
 
Lynn Dollar said:
And I'll add , the bark he got on this cook was fantastic, vid will start when he pulls butt off the cooker

Click to expand...
I am not sure what recipe he cooked here, but I have learned using a Carolina style mop (ACV, black pepper, red pepper flakes, and sugar) mopped every hour creates a whole different type of amazing bark. Use that mop on top of a rub butt and the bark should really be good. 20200524_061129.jpg
 
Lynn Dollar said:
I used this trim on my last butt cook and was very happy with the additional bark it produced. Butterflying the butt would produce the most surface area for bark, but that's not an easy task on a bone in butt. This trim from Chef Tom is the next best thing, IMO.

Chef Tom also uses course rubs to get better bark. I watched one of his pork butt cooks where he used two rubs, one more for flavor, the other was course to provide more bark.

And I don't think pork butt can be overly seasoned. Its such a large hunk of meat that heavy coat of rub doesn't matter.

Here's the trim, he opens up a seam between muscles and cleans it out. When the butt shrinks during the cook, the inside of the seam becomes exposed for bark.

Click to expand...
That is a great video!
 
Michael Richards said:
That is a great video!
Click to expand...

I've become a fan of Chef Tom except when he talks brisket, I'm a central Texas brisket devotee.

ATBBQ is located in Wichita, KS and Tom is very KC oriented. I found more about him from a podcast, he grew up in Kansas but left for Portland, where he went to culinary school. Stayed in Portland 4 or 5 years, got married and had a son, and got a job offer from ATBBQ to move back to Wichita, which he thought was a better place for a family.

His mop was very close to yours, ACV, ketchup, brown sugar, red pepper flakes, sea salt. Vid starts with the mop.

 
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That's a pretty thick FC that you scored, and you hardly got any rendering.
Yea FC down next time.
 
Fat caps around here are always TICK!...must be 'dem Wisconsin pigs :)

I trimmed the fat cap off as well as the junk in that slit this past weekend and also put fat cap down...definitely got the bark i wanted but all the meet was wayyy to dry for my liking. So i guess i need to find a balance of old way vs. new way. Also ran the bowl empty for the first time as well.
 
Willie (Green Bay) said:
Fat caps around here are always TICK!...must be 'dem Wisconsin pigs :)

I trimmed the fat cap off as well as the junk in that slit this past weekend and also put fat cap down...definitely got the bark i wanted but all the meet was wayyy to dry for my liking. So i guess i need to find a balance of old way vs. new way. Also ran the bowl empty for the first time as well.
Click to expand...
@Willie (Green Bay) have you tried any method recently? Updates?
 
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