Reducing cooking time by cutting meat into smaller pieces?

[Ray Crick]

This may be a crazy question, but I was wondering what the "downside" might be to cutting pork butts in half before smoking in order to reduce the cooking time. Anyone done this? Is it worth a try?

Ray

 

[Paul G.]

I think a potential downside is that the fat and connective tissue in a butt needs a certain amount of time at a low/slow temp in order to render, breakdown and otherwise create that great final product. Perhaps cutting a very large butt in half resulting in pieces greater than 4 lbs might be ok. Smaller than that - seems to me the butt might reach the desired internal temp before the "magic" happens.

Paul

 

[Morgan Sziraki]

Sort of. The butcher I called took the liberty of cutting it for me. More bark and slightly drier (maybe) but it cooked in less time. Unless you have some reason such as a deadline to meet I would cook 'em whole.

 

[Virgil Berry]

Ray, the first butt I cooked (just the two of us to eat) was only 3 1/3 pounds, boneless. Came out beautifully. Had a nice plateau, wasn't dry.

Seems to me we wouldn't lose much, and might gain a bit of time by splitting a large one. I haven't yet done an overnight, and might just use this idea to avoid it even longer.

Virgil

 

[Geoff U.]

I always cut my pork butts into pieces, sometimes as small as 2.5 pounds. I do this because you end up with more of the best parts - more bark, more smoke ring, more smoke flavor. I think Paul's concern about the meat suffering from being cooked too fast can be avoided by making sure your temperatures in the cooker stay around 225. In fact, it still usually takes at least 10 hours, often more like 14, for the meat to be done, so I don't think I'm losing the benefits of low-and-slow cooking. Bottom line, though, is that I get a lot more bark, and I'm happier with the end result.