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pork shoulder


 
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Dan Bond

TVWBB Member
I want to smoke a pork shoulder this weekend, any advice. Smoke the same way as a pork butt? What enternal temp. do I need and time/pound would be helpful. Thanks in advance for any tips.
 
I learned that a "Boston Butt" is in fact a shoulder cut, so there can be a lot of confusion in this area. I am going to smoke a 7 lb. bone in pork shoulder on my WSM using the minion method starting tonight at 9 p.m. According to the experts it will "pull" in about 15-18 hours cooking it on low temps in the 225-275 range.

But, use a meat thermometer and when it reaches 190 degrees it is ready to "pull".

Wishing you a good Q,

Danny Hardesty
 
Chris,

I guess I am confused again. I thought the term "picnic" referred to a picnic ham, which would be a true cut off the "butt" or rear-end of the pig. Is there a picnic shoulder cut and a picnic ham cut too? Appreciate the help.

Danny Hardesty
 
As Chris said the Front shoulder consist of the top end or the BUTT and botton portion the Picnic. A picnic hams is from the picnic or the front leg.

The Hams are from the rear legs and would make up the butt but the butt is from the front leg.
Hope that makes it perfectly clear. /infopop/emoticons/icon_confused.gif
Jim
 
Thanks for the help. The picnic went on about 9:30 Chicago time and will let everyone know how it turned out tomorrow. This is her right before she went on and the temp right after. The last one after about 30
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min. on the smoker.
http://www.ImageHosting.com/images/bondo/Cnv0035.jpg
http://www.ImageHosting.com/images/bondo/Cnv0036.jpg
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They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If you have Adobe Reader, download this PDF and take a look at the pork chart. It shows where these cuts come from.

http://www.porkboard.org/ProdIssues/porkcuts.pdf

Like Jim said, a "picnic ham" is the shoulder picnic portion that's been cured same as a ham from the rear leg of a pig. The use of the word "ham" does cause confusion in this context.

A "cured ham" and a "fresh ham" both come from the rear leg of a pig, one being cured and the other not.

I've heard many less than satisfying explanations of why the top portion of the pig's shoulder is called a "butt", but whoever named it that sure caused a lot of confusion. /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Regards,
Chris
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>I've heard many less than satisfying explanations of why the top portion of the pig's shoulder is called a "butt", but whoever named it that sure caused a lot of confusion. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>The way it was explained to me, at one time, was:
the "butt" designation refers to the larger end of a cut of meat. The analogy I was given was the butt of a rifle being the largest part of the stock.
I guess it makes some sense, as the butt is the upper shoulder, a larger piece of muscle, and the picnic is the upper portion of the leg. I'm not sure how true this is, but it's one possible explanation.

Jim
 
The source of my confusion was (out of all due respect to Weber /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif ) a book I got the other day entitled Weber's Big Book of Grilling. On page 399 of the appendix Weber provides a picture of a pig and pictorially represents a "smoked picnic ham" as coming from the rear-end of the pig.

Danny Hardesty
 
Here is the finished picnic with internal temp of 195* using the Mavrick ET-73. Went on at 9:30 last night and pulled off smoker 10 hours later. Very fast smoke for 8lb. The mavrick did wake me at 2:30
with the smoker alarm going off at 300*. Adjusted the vents and went back to bed.
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Dan, I had the same experience. My 7# bone in pork shoulder "pulled" after only ten hours on my WSM(I used sand in the water pan)cooking at temps between 225 and 255. I had expected a cook in the 13-18 hour range but it finished much sooner than I thought it would.

Danny Hardesty
 
Looks good!! I've never done a picnic shoulder before. I've always done butts. I have two on right now. I think I'll be taking them off mid-afternoon.

So, you're having pulled pork for breakfast? mmmmm How's about a pork sandwich with a fried egg and a slice of cheese on an english muffin or bagle? MickyD's got nothin!!!
 
I will tell you the truth I was planning on an 18 hour smoke and have pulled pork for dinner. I'm not sure why it went so fast, but maybe a pulled pork omelet might taste good.
 
Personally I would pull it. Mix with some BBQ sauce and throw in the fridge. Then for supper throw it in the slow cooker for a while to warm up an have pulled pork sandwich's. The smoke flavor will be much better then as well.
This is just my opinion.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Danny Hardesty:
[qb]The source of my confusion was...Weber's Big Book of Grilling. On page 399...a picture of a pig...represents a "smoked picnic ham" as coming from the rear-end of the pig.[/qb] <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>This is a good catch, Danny. What's weird is that my copy of the book is even more messed up, now that I look at that chart.

Mine shows the shoulder section labeled "1", the loin section "2", the rear leg "3", and the belly "4". The surrounding graphics show smoked picnic ham as coming from 4 (should be 1), fresh ham and smoked ham coming from 4 (should be 3), bacon coming from 3 (should be 4), and spareribs coming from 2 (should be 4).

Given that yours says smoked picnic ham comes from the leg and mine says the belly, I guess they've screwed up this diagram in different ways in different printings of the book.

Regards,
Chris
 
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