Your Butt Style


 
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Steve Petrone

TVWBB Platinum Member
In another thread a discusion about butt cooking styles was started. One of the better restaurants in this part of NC cooks butts direct-over charcoal with just salt and pepper. Cooks typically run 12 hours. It is excellent retail Q. Kevin mentioned in road trip thread that his style varied quite a bit from Lexington style. His comments followed. As good as my Q is, I just figured everybody did it the same as I did. Wrong Steve. There are many variations.
Seasoning: dry rub or wet, salt & pepper or your own flavor profile, inject or not....
Cook: direct or indirect, dry or with water, low or higher temp, short or longer cook, baste or not....
Post Cook: foil and rest, pull or chop, sauce, vinegar or apple juice....

Based on what I have learned from you all, here is my method.

Dry rub with homemade rub (4-Pepper Rub)while starting the Kingsford. I still have a few old bags. Cooks are at 220-245 with water. 8lb. butts run about 18 hours on average to an internal of 190 or so. No basting. Foil and rest. Depending on how much rest I need. My preferance is to pull the meat but chop the bark. I'll mix with more rub and a Lexington style sauce.
What do you like to do differently?
 
Pretty similar here.

Dry rub, cook at 225 grate, Do not baste, turn, or rotate, 8lb'er averages around 18-19 hours cook time, rest time varies a lot (1-4 hours)depending on circumstances.

I will turn over the butt while foiled during the rest time (it keeps the bark a little softer), at whatever the halfway point is during that particular rest period.

I put the wrapped butts in an aluminum foil pan inside the cooler to catch the drippings that might fall out, and pull the meat inside the pan when it's done resting.

I chop big pieces of bark if it's hard....leave it alone if it's moist (wife's preference), add small amounts of rub and thinned out sauce when pulling.
 
I do the same as you do. I've wondered more than once how some people seem to get there butts done so quick. I really want to try just salt and pepper and nothing else for a rub butI never seem to do it.
 
I am a newbie when it comes to the WSM. I have
been cooking Q on a stickburner for a couple of years. I have been trying to reproduce that
Esatern N.C.style Q. I have used about every varation of rub and sauce in could find. Lately I have been cooking butts with no seasoning, only a vinegar sauce added when pulling.
This is as close as I have come to what I am looking for. I have talked to alot of the "old timers" in the area and the only rub they use is salt and black corse ground pepper. Another thing I have finally realized is I am not going to get the flavor/texture I am looking for out of a butt. In my area all of the Pig Pickings at the comunity centers, fire houses, churches ect... cook whole hog over a charcoal/wood mix.
The fat dripping on the coals does comething magical.

I guess that will be my next venture.
just my 2cents
 
Steve, love your vinegar sauce recipe. I substitute Chipotle or Ancho powder for cayenne. Adds a nice flavor. I gave some of your sauce out when I did butts for some people last week. Got nothing but raves. Gave out the recipe.
 
I try to experiment everytime I cook, except when friends and family are going to be eating my bbq, then I stay with my #1 slather, rub and injection. Its an ego thing
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. But experience has taught me that there are no rules other than making sure the food is handled properly and cooked through. My next mad project is going to be a double injection. By that I mean I will inject before smoking, then inject with a cooked sauce later when the fat has rendered "sp". Sure it could be a waste of time, or overkill but I cant wait to find out.
 
The Eastern NC Flavor can be acheived on the WSM. This is the trick. Cut off the Fat back and cube it. Place it trhoughout the coals like you would wood chunks. Eastern NC BBQ is doen over an open flame and the fat drips down to create the smokey baocny flavor. Obviously a water pan is in our way. But by moving the fat to the bottom in the coals you get the same result. It works...trust me!
 
Dale, Interesting theory. Would you get the same result by just pulling the pork and mixing it with the injection? Be interested in how your experiment turns out<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Dale Perry:
I try to experiment everytime I cook, except when friends and family are going to be eating my bbq, then I stay with my #1 slather, rub and injection. Its an ego thing
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. But experience has taught me that there are no rules other than making sure the food is handled properly and cooked through. My next mad project is going to be a double injection. By that I mean I will inject before smoking, then inject with a cooked sauce later when the fat has rendered "sp". Sure it could be a waste of time, or overkill but I cant wait to find out. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
 
Probably Paul, but im not sure, so I figure what the h&11. I like the taste & texture of PP without sauce but still want the flavors of my injection sauce to be stronger. Stronger sauce maybe, who knows but that quest to find out has been fun. When friends say "Dales BBQ is so good, it doesnt need sauce" makes me happy.
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Dale, you may want to consider brining the butts. I did some a couple of weeks ago and my wife said there was a definite difference in the taste between that and the injected ,nonbrined butt.
 
Already have brined them before. That works too but my injection sauce seems to turn out more to my taste. If I can find a better brine than what I used "hint" than maybe that would work.
 
I slather with mustard and then rub. Cook 240-250 lid. Halfway through the cook I baste then mop with sauce. I like the sauce to caramalize real good. I do the same with my ribs. I sauce before smoking them. No foil at the end for the butt. Rest about 1/2 hour before pulling.
 
Paul, I am so pleased you have enjoyed the sauce. Thanks for the feedback.

The suggestion to brine is one I have not yet tried. Good thought.

Clay, you have mentioned placing the fat in or on the coals before. This makes sense to me. I have to remember to try it.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Dale Perry:
Already have brined them before. That works too but my injection sauce seems to turn out more to my taste. If I can find a better brine than what I used "hint" than maybe that would work. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Dale,

I hear you've got a killer injection sauce, is it available on the website?

Jim
 
This is the discussion that Steve refers to at the top. It is worth saving before it gets deleted from the Just Conversation thread.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by K Kruger:
Steve--

My approach is quite (radically?) different. As you can probably tell from my recipes I like the whole complementary/contrast-y flavor milieu which, of course, is quite different from the no-rubbed (or very minimally rubbed) NC style. I look to make rubs and sauces that will play on, play with, and play up the myriad flavors of smoked meats. I look to build flavor layers of meat, rub/bark, smoke and sauce elements all of which are designed to complement each other and work together, or contrast here and there in order to highlight elements of the overall profile.

For butt I like a fairly heavy layer of peppery/spicy herbed-with-some-sugar bark which I like to crisp during cooking. The bark gets removed before pulling then finely chopped and mixed in with the pork when pulled for textural contrast and its flavor, obviously, gets mixed in that way as well. During pulling I mix in a little vinegar sauce (not unlike your vinegar sauce but without the ketchup, rub and chipotle and with a bit of Dijon) and I make and serve a sauce (often either tomato-based with fruit or fruit-based with tomato, sometimes an onion/aromatic-based with fruit) on the side.

There are those who might feel that my approach takes away from the meat just as there are those who'd argue that anything more than salt and pepper on a steak ruins the steak (I always rub steak!). While I would never argue what anyone should prefer I would argue that meats can take a lot of seasonings. To me it's a matter of what the spices/herbs/aromatics are, their quantities relative to each other, and the quantity of rub (or finishing sauce or side sauce) relative to the meat.

I rub butt heavily because relative to the meat it still ends up a small (but flavorful!) percentage. The vinegar sauce, to me, plays up the rub by both complementing and contrasting with it, and it contrasts with the meat but complements the smoke.

That, in a bit more than a nutshell, is my butt approach and, truth be told, is representative of my approach to cooking in general. Though I appreciate a simpler take on cooking it's not really my style. I do cook some things simply but that's usually because I'm serving them alongside more complexly or intricately flavored items. The simple contrasts with the complex and thus completes the whole. That's the attempt anyway.
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Sometimes i put "what's that there sauce" on em and apply the rub, other times i just put the rub on with no sauce. Either way thet get rubbed down right before going onto the WSM and the style is "Good Eats"
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I try to not over think things. The more variables you put into it the more that can go wrong or come out.......... well not to your liking.
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Bryan, this stuff can be 'over thought'. Thats the fun of it. In reality butts are VERY forgiving. Perhaps one of the easiest cuts we cook. The fat content assures a pretty good result if handled reasonably well.
Kevin, as usual puts the issues in perspective. The star is smoked meat-everything else should show it off and build flavor and texture that enhances it. We have different perspectives and tastes and that is what I find interesting. Trying something new exposes us to new flavors that expand our experience. Clay's fat in the fire is a great idea for someone trying to improve on the NC direct cook style. Kevin's rec. to try a rub with fenugreek or other exotic spice has always led to a new flavor experience and usually to a better rub or sauce. Growing up in an Italian family, the two most common 'flavored' meats were meatballs and Italian Sausage. As you know fennel is the principal flavor in the sausage. Grilled Italian sausage is such a treat, I figured a butt would be better with a fennel based rub. After researching rubs, I found very few with fennel. So I developed 4-Pepper Rub-disguised the fennel in the name thinking who would want to try that! The first effort was a hit. So try something new. Share it with the rest of us.
 
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