Pulled Pork Butt Recipe

[whatchusmokin]

Ok so I know that there are probably a hundred threads about smoking a pork shoulder, butt here is the way I do it.

*I do not claim this as "My" method, but it is the way I always do my pork and it has yielded excellent results, if I do say so myself.  Also, this may seem a little oversimplified, but, well who cares. (Steps four and five can be done the night before, and one through three can be done up to like a week before smoking.

Step One:

              The main ingredient here is obviously a giant chunk of deceased swine, specifically, a Boston Butt. I usually buy them in a two- pack from Sams Club.

Step Two:

              I remove the butts from the packaging and lightly trim them. (not very much, I usually just take the fat cap down a bit, and remove any scraggly bits of fat)


Step Three:

              Next I rinse the meat of with cold water.

Step Four:

              The first butt that I ever did came out wonderfully tender, but had almost zero flavor, so a good injection is a must for me.

              My injections usually consist of apple juice, apple cider vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, a little salt, some brown sugar, and something spicy, what that is                                          depends on your personal taste. Well I guess all of it does really but you know what I mean. Just experiment to find your own favorite flavor of pork.

              Once my injection is made and my pork is trimmed and rinsed, I set it in a pan (casserole pan or whatever, any thing with sides really), and go to town with my injector. Once I' done injecting, I move the butt to a dry pan and pat it "dry" with some paper towel. This is important for the next step.

Step Five:

             Rub that meat down! I either make my own rub, or use Weber's Kansas City Style BBQ Rub, but you can use what ever rub you like. Don't go easy on the rub here either, give that thing a solid coat. Your taste buds will thank you later. Before applying my rub I pat the meat dry pretty good, and shake the rub on and rub it in. Sometimes I will opt to give the butt a thin coating of mustard, to help hold on the rub. This doesn't effect the flavor much in my experience, and isn't necessary, but helps if you are having trouble keeping the rub on the meat.

Step Six:

             In my opinion, the Boston Butt is one of the easiest things to smoke, and achieve excellent results. I think this is because of the high fat content of this cut of meat, which makes it very forgiving in terms of temperature. Some people swear by 225 or 250 degrees, and these are fine, if you have all the time in the world, and they will yield excellent results, but due to the exceedingly forgiving nature of the butt, I usually cook it at no lower than 275, and am perfectly happy cooking at 300, however I would hesitate to cook at anything more than that, and definitely not more than 325. As for time, I usually allow for an hour, plus one additional hour for each pound that the butt weighs, for example, a six pound butt would take approximately seven hours, but I cook to temperature, so the whole time thing is just to give an idea of how long it takes.

             Ok so I've done pork butts both on my mini WSM, and on my  kettles, both 18 and 22 inch.

                      Kettle Method:
                                         
                                          When cooking a butt on one of my kettles in the past I have just used the minion method, with a charcoal basket heaped with charcoal. This is an excellent method for a smaller butt, but will work for a larger one, just with some extra maintenance. For a larger butt, I recently started using the snake method, which by the way is awesome! I just rotate the grate a little bit when I check the temp to keep it opposite of where most of the heat is. I just make the snake, throw a couple chunks of apple wood on top, and light it. I place the butt on the grate opposite of where I light the snake, and let it roll. None of the kettles that I have used for butts have had thermometers, so I just judge the temp by the heat coming out of the top vent, again, these things are nothing if not forgiving. This will come with practice, but the first time I did it, I had one butt on my kettle, and one on my mini, so I just got the mini to about 300, and felt it to see what 300 felt like at the top vent.
Anyways, When the butt reaches about 160 internal, I wrap it tightly in foil. (An instant read thermometer is a must, unless you have a digital bbq system like the BBQ Guru or the iGrill. I use a Weber one I got for 8 dollars, and its never let me down yet.) Once the butt is in foil, I let it ride on up to at least 200 internal, but 225 is better. when you probe it, it should feel like probing melted butter wrapped in foil. After I reach my desired temp, I pull it out and unwrap the foil just enough to get at the bone. Using tongs, I grip the bone and twist and pull, the bone should just jump right out, or at least come out without taking the meat with it. If it doesn't, throw it on a bit longer.

                      Mini WSM method:

                                               I don't do anything different when using my mini, other than that the meat is on a rack above the meat, rather than up and to the side of it. Just make sure you use a heat diffuser. (Water pan or otherwise.)

Step Seven:

                Tear it up! I just take two serving forks and have at it. I don't shred it too fine, because a lot of it goes into the fridge for sandwiches later, and reheating can make it kinda mushy if it is too finely shredded. I shouldn't need to add that protocol is to eat as much as you can after you pull it off the pit. Also, don't forget to let it rest! I usually wrap it in a towel and throw it in an old picnic cooler.

Hope you learned something, enjoy your next smoke.

[jcnaz]

Sounds good. When do we eat?

[Troy]

did you mean to say 225 internal?
thats pretty high.

[whatchusmokin]

I definitely wouldn't go any higher than that, but I have cooked butts to 225 before and they turned out good. At 200 I have found them to bee a little harder to pull, but anywhere between those two temps is the golden range in my opinion.

[Troy]

Curious, what thermo are you using to temp the butt?

[toddmog]

I can't imagine going much past 205* internal temp.  I just did 4 butts on Wednesday on my UDS.  Every one of them probed like butter at 195...and the bone wiggled free like a little kids loose tooth.

[whatchusmokin]

It could be that my thermo is off, i use the weber one, with the round thing on the too, not the square one, if that makes any sense. Also, @toddmog how long are your buttts sitting at this temp? Are you taking them off right away when they hit 195?

[toddmog]

I check them when they hit 195. I use my Thermopop and probe several places throughout the butt. If they probe with no resistance, they come off. If not, I usually give them another 5* and check again. I usually cook at 275* +/- and get very little, if any stall.  Of the 4 I just did, the smallest came off at the 7 hour mark and the biggest at the 8 hour mark. The other 2 came off in between.

[whatchusmokin]

Ok that sounds about right, because when i take them off i stick the probe all over the place to check the tenderness, and it feels like butter usually about the time my thermo is saying 200-225, so it may very well be like 10- 15 degrees off

[toddmog]

Sounds like you need to do a boiling water and/or ice water temp test.