Pork Shoulder Roast to overdone?


 
R

Ruben Z

TVWBB Member
I had a Small 2.5lb Pork shoulder Roast that I decided to smoke for practice. It was on sale so what the heck. It's my second smoke on the WSM 18.5". I'm not even sure if I did anything right but my stomach tells me so. So I slow cooked it at a a low 200-225 from Midnight to 4 in the morning and then opened up the vents a little more and went to bed. Woke up today at 8:30am and temp was back down to 225.

So I open lid and it looks good, the Meat had seperated from the BONE quite a bit, so I'm thinking it may have been too overdone but it's tender and nice. I have no meat thermometer yet so I'm really going by looks.
 
If it's falling off the bone, it's probably done (at least).

Check for tender and moist. Dry and tough are signs of overdone.

Slide a probe, fork, skewer or something similar into the meat while hot. It should slide in effortlessly.
 
Matt, I thought so as well and actually was just wanting to get rid of it. I'm trying to smoke a bunch of meat I've had in freezer for a while to get the new WSM nice and used up. It was actually tender. Probably because it was fatty. But yes, some parts were dry.
 
a meat therm is a necessity.........at least from the perspective that you'll know when you're getting in the ball park of done.

for me, once the butt gets to 185-190 per my probe, I start checking it to make sure it's fork/probe tender. 195-200 usually means done, but most probes and most butts are a little different.

as soon as the bone starts to pull away and it's probe tender, off it comes!
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Ruben Z:
I had a Small 2.5lb Pork shoulder Roast that I decided to smoke for practice. It was on sale so what the heck. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

No idea how long this little piece of pork butt needed to reach tenderness, but this reminds me of the time a while back when I picked up a little 4lb or so partial brisket flat. Smoking at in the 225-250 range, I know it's hard to believe, but it took 3hr/lb. to reach true tenderness. No joke, and yes, it was kind of dry.

My point isn't that you need to cook a rather small bbq cut for a surprisingly long time though. Just don't mess with smoking things that aren't worth the trouble. I suppose the OP's piece of pork butt would've been a great deal if cutting up for country style ribs, and my little piece of brisket would've best been braised.
 
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