Please - Need some help on What to do with a Pork Shoulder Picnic!


 
M

Michael Spurling

TVWBB Member
Hi guys -

My wife picked up some meat at my local BJs Wholesale store - I had asked her to get Pork Butts but she brought back to me Pork Shoulder Picnics. I dont know what to do with these - are they very similar to pork butts ? I have never smoked these before in my life! They have like a leather/fat like jacket on a big chunk of the shoulder. Should I keep that on - or cut it off? Please Help - Any tips / opinions / methods - I got to smoke these things later tonight. Michael
 
Treat it like a butt, it's just the lower part of the shoulder/upper leg. If you buy whole shoulders you get the butt and picnic. You may want to trim the skin before cooking and use it for cracklings.
 
It's leaner with less muscles than the Butt section.

I would suggest wrapping at around 150-160 to help minimize moisture loss.
 
Hi Bob and John -

Thanks for the tips and thoughts. Bob - I'm reading a few things online - people seem to be back and forth with keeping the skin on or off - I'm going to take it off I think.

I was already on planning on foiling it around 160 John - thanks for the tip about the leaner meat.

Thanks guys for the help - any other tips from anyone will be appreciated. I'll have to let you guys know how I made out.
 
I have never done a Butt, I did my first pork shouder on the performer and it came out great in like 4.5 hours. It was a fun learning experience going to do another soon.
 
I've smoked picnic shoulder twice recently. Both around 8-9 lb range, bone in. I took the skin off, gave them a generous amount of rub and smoked them at about 230 degrees. I did not need to foil them and cooked them to 185 degrees. You should be able to remove the bone with your fingers, twist it out, if not they're not done. They were tender and moist. We pulled them like a butt.
 
Thanks Kevin and Gary. We'll see how this turns out. I took all of the skin off of them - I'm really glad I had a really sharp boning knife for this job. It helped a lot. One of my picnics was about 7.5 lbs pre-trim; the other was about 8.2 lbs. After I trimmed them up I had taken about a pound of skin and fat off of each. They both have a bone in them - but it def seems smaller than butts I have done in the past.
 
Picnics are more common in our grocery stores than butts for some reason so I've cooked quite a few. Never really noticed to much of a moisture difference between the two and I don't bother foiling.
 
Thanks everyone for all their input / opinions and help.

My first time with Pork Shoulder Picnic turned out really well. Surprisingly - or in spite of - the meat tasted really good. In fact it's the best tasting pork I've made yet ( the only butts I've done in the past were shoulders )

By the way - I used some Sticky Fingers BBQ Sauce ( Carolina Classic ) on some of my sammys. It tasted awesome. It was a brown mustard type sauce - sweet, but with a little kick ( had some cayenne pepper flakes in it ).

Also used some Stubbs Honey Pecan BBQ Sauce too - that tasted incredible too with pork sammys.

Anyway - I did use some different methods, products and techniques this time around.

Some stuff I did for the first time -

+ I smoked with chunks of pecan and cherry ( In the past I used oak and apple )

+ I used a diff. rub altogether

+ Once every hour for the first 3 hours - I sprayed some apple juice on the picnics and added some rub as well.

+ When the picnics got to about 165 degrees - I took them off; foiled them and placed them back on the smoker ( I had never tried this foiling process before - I think it made a huge difference in the end result )

+ Once I took them off the smoker ( it was about 190-192 degrees give or take for the internal meat temp ) I let the picnics
sit wrapped in the foil in a ice chest for an hour to let the juices absorb back into the meat. Then I pulled the meat. ( In the past after I pulled the meat off the smoker - I started pulling it within 10-15 minutes.

+ I saved some of the juices that had gathered in the foil wraps - I added some of the juices to the pork I was pulling - I think it added more flavor and moisture as well.


Overall - the taste, flavor and smoke penetration was the best I have had yet. I'm anxious to try some of these methods again in the future - espec with the shoulder instead of the picnic.
 
Well if you are cooking a whole shoulder it is made up of the butt and the picnic.

Spritzing really doesn't add much to the overall flavour and slows down the cooking process and can actually have a washing affect IMO. Lots of people will disagree with me.

Try adding more of your rub to the meat when you pull it if you want more rub flavour.
 
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