Pork Butt..foil pan or on the grate


 
J

John Frailey

TVWBB Fan
It am pretty new to smoking pork butts. Have read and enjoyed hundreds of posts here on the subject. I see some of you do them on the grate, others do them in an aluminum foil pan. I am curious how all of you do them, and why. I have tried both ways, both tasted great. One left me with an alunminum foil pan of grease, the other way left me with a foiled clay saucer full of grease. Looking forward to hearing your opinions.
 
Well no matter how you do them there is gonna be a lot of grease, I prefer my Q not swimming in its on though. Plus you get more bark when done on the grate.
 
I still haven't done one on myWSM yet,next cook maybe, but when I did them on my Chargriller I did them fat side down so I wouldn't tear the bark off incase it sticks to the grate.
 
Always on the grate. If you are concerned about the amount of rendered fat,put a foil pan under the butt to collect all the drippings,or you can just let it drip into the water pan.
 
John, I'm like the other guys. On the grate. Let it render on to my foil covered empty water pan. Way to much grease for me to try to render out.
 
For the sake of clarity, I am not concerned about the amount of fat rendered.I know there is a lot. I am interested in why everyone chooses one of the methods over the other. I have seen a lot of posts that say the renderings can be added back in to a dry butt, which got me thinking..(always a dangerous proposition LOL). Others talk about using the renderings for some #5 sauce or something. Thanks for the responses so far.
 
Well..... I hope you didn't take my reply as SA then. Wasn't trying to come across that way. However, I don't use the grease that renders out the whole cook for sauces or other things. It is waaaaay over smoked and bitter. If I want some renderings I will use a pan on the rack under the butt during the last couple of hours for that. As noted above you will lose some of the exterior that is on the grate so it might as well be the (false) fat cap, as the real fat cap is under that. This way the opposite side is all good bark.

When you say: a dry butt, do you mean that as in the meat has no moisture? Or you want it to be a wet finished product, as in sauced?
 
I cook mine on the grate. I have been known to put my butts in an aluminum pan about the time that some folks put the butts into foil (5 - 6 hour mark) then cover the pan with foil. That works well, but usually, I just wrap my butts in a double layer of heavy duty foil.

However, I just finished Myron Mixon's new book "Smoked" (I think that is the title)and Myron is fan of cooking in pans) so I guess it is to each his own.

Maybe do a comparison cookoff and see which works best for you? Top butt in a pan, bottom butt on the grate.

Good luck!

Pat
 
Glenn:I did not take your post as SA at all. I get to my way of doing things by listening to a lot of suggestions, opinions, and BS. I sort thru things, try the ones I think have merit, then maybe try some that at first glance I thought were BS. I have just gotten thru reading every single post on the smokey joe to smoker conversion topic..all 34 pages..and am now processing how I am going to proceed with my conversion. I really want to know peoples opinions on why the do their butts a certain way. The "dry" statement was becasues I have read some here say the butt was a bit dry so they put some of the rendered fat back into it before serving. Just looking for any and all input with no pre conceived notions
 
I might do it a little differently if I wasn't cooking on my 18.5" wsm....like going back to cooking on an offset or larger cooker, but I typically don't use any foil or pans at all until resting. I mostly cook low-n-slow overnight so there's no rush to speed up the cook, and I rest the butts for HOURS.

Also, just my .02 cents, but I think that pan- collected meat drippings are a little over-rated. Pork butt is so rich as it is when cooked right that I just focus on getting it tender and not overcooking all that yumminess out of it. After resting and pulling, I do pour the drippings left in the foil over the meat, though. If it's a little dry, there's nothing wrong with adding a little something to the meat, but it doesn't have to include any additional meat drippings.
 
I've had butts from the oven in and out of foil, crock pot, and on the grate. The grate is the way to go. We cook 2000 lbs. of butts in the spring and fall at church, and I've not seen a dried out butt yet. I have only seen one that couldn't be pulled and that butt wasn't even fit to feed to a dog.
 
I do mine on the rack. Once it reaches about 180 degrees I wrap it in foil. I like the fat to render out of the meat. I feel the last hour or so to get to 190 degrees or more is the main time to think about drying out,even then I doubt it will.
Just last weekend I did 4 buts this way and had great results.

Mike
 
John,
On Smoke Day this year I made a butt in a foil pan for the first time, always before on the grate.
I had sliced off all but a thin layer of the fat.
It was my best ever, very moist and tender.

There wasn't a whole lot of grease in the pan, and I separated that from the juices to add with a finishing sauce, but it really didn't need the extra moisture.

And, I rendered the removed fat into lard for baking, etc.

I guess my point is, if everyone wants to render out the fat, why not remove it before cooking?

IMGP2474.JPG
 
Originally posted by Bob Correll:
I guess my point is, if everyone wants to render out the fat, why not remove it before cooking?
Click to expand...

Hmmmm....Now THAT's thinking outside of the box.
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Glad your BBQ turned out so good for ya, Bob!
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Originally posted by Bob Correll:
John,
On Smoke Day this year I made a butt in a foil pan for the first time, always before on the grate.
I had sliced off all but a thin layer of the fat.
It was my best ever, very moist and tender.

Out of curiosity, will you use a foil pan in the future, or "maybe , maybe not?"


IMGP2474.JPG
Click to expand...
 
Out of curiosity, will you use a foil pan in the future, or "maybe , maybe not?"
Click to expand...
Yes I will,
#1 because the butt was great.
#2 because the clean up was a snap.
#3 I like having the trimmed fat rendered into lard for baking/cooking purposes.

Also, I run my WSM dry, with the WSM pan foiled and sitting inside of a Brinkmann pan.

This method may not be for everyone, but worked well for me.
 
[Also, I run my WSM dry, with the WSM pan foiled and sitting inside of a Brinkmann pan.

This method may not be for everyone, but worked well for me.[/QUOTE]


Off the top of your head do you know where I can find pics of that setup (WSM inside Brinkman) I have been using foiled clay saucer but once I started on butts (ribs only before now) I started having temp issues and looking again for alternatives.
 
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