Best pork butt "recipes"?
 

Brethren:

The four butts I've smoked since starting to smoke have been good, but maybe not as good as they could be. They've been reasonably moist/tender, and the flavor has been good...but again, maybe not great.

Just wondering what tried and true recipes/rubs/methods y'all swear by.

Thanks as always.

Rub em, smoke em, rest um, pull um

That part I've pretty much mastered.

To be honest it depends on my mood which way I'm going with a rub or even a spritz.


However, in my opinion the biggest change in flavor for me is the woods I use and if I was gonna "swear" by one for pork it would be a combo of hickory(or pecan) and cherry. The hickory and pecan is either or but the cherry has to be part of the combo.

And cherry by itself with beef.

Now juiciness is all down to fat content and cooking technique. The faster(hotter) the cook the higher the finish temp and the longer the rest(for me). The slower(lower temp) the cook the more I can cut off my rest. I look for butts that are marbled as well as I can see and depending on who is eating I either trim the fat to 1/8th inch and crown to render more from the cap and spritz at the end to have a sweet crunchy bark to blend into the meat or 1/4 and don't crown to skim the whole thing off to make the pork more "lean" for the people that fear fat for some reason.(been known to keep the scraped fat to make a heck of a sammich I don't want people seeing me eat) LOL!!


Almost forgot. I always buy my butts in the cryovac twin packs. I've never liked buying butts that have been handled a lot before i get them. That's a good way to live your life in more ways than one. :mrgreen::biggrin1:

Lately I've been using blues hog rub, and Chris Lilly's injection minus half the salt.

Salt, Smoke, Pull, Salt,AC vinegar, Eat

Great input, thanks a million.

Purchase: I purchase only un-enhanced butts. I have had many a bad outing wasting my time, effort, and monies not including reputation trying to make an enhanced piece of **** taste worth a darn. Usually they come 2 to a cryovac pouch.

Inject: About an hour before putting on the smoker. Sooner, like overnight, will concentrate the sodium and allow the whole thing to become "hammy". I use my own modified version of Chris Lilly's injection, with a LOT less salt than his calls for.

Rub: Just before injecting. I use my own, but it's very similar to Plowboy's Yardbird, just less sodium.

On the smoker: On my smoker I use hickory; that smoke flavor works for me and with my rubs and injections. Yours may vary. I leave it on smoke for 4.5 hours.

Foil: I foil for color and to govern the amount of smokiness we have in/on the meat. I use ONLY Heavy Duty foil, wrapped TIGHT.

On the smoker: FYI: I cook in the 260 temperature range. If it dips to 240, no biggie. If it spikes to 280, again, no biggie. Total cook time for large 8.5-10.0# butts is usually around that 9.5 hour mark.

Off the smoker: rest for 2 hours or more.

Pull: I pull then into chunks. I do NOT mince them into oblivion, nor shred them beyond belief, nor pull them into tiny thin pieces. These destroy the product I've worked to hard to create. Chunks, roughly the size of my thumb. They hold moisture and their flavor much better.

Eat: If you need a description here, then you're on the wrong forum.

As said I buy "fresh" cryopac butts, not enhanced. Skin on if they have them.
I like Chris Lily's rub as it is and his injection minus the salt.
I put the rub on and inject late the night before I smoke it. Usually 7hrs or so.
Use cherry here, as I have a ton of it, and smoke for about 4-4.5 hrs then into a tinfoil pan with a little apple juice and cover for the remaining time, about 4.5-5 hrs.
I cook at around 250f.
Rest for about 2 hrs and then pull, not into tiny pieces, or slice.
Enjoy the fruits of my labor.......with cole slaw that is

I think rubs play a less important role than what woods you are using.

For pork, I always use an oak, apple, cherry combo. Get a lot of different favors from each wood. I used to use hickory exclusively but hickory just got bitter to my taste buds for some reason.

I look for a butt in the 7 to 9 pound range, I prefer bone-in, but, it isn't a deal breaker. I do look for nice white fat.

I do all manner of rubs and am not quite sure it makes much of a difference. I use hickory and apple, or just apple. If I find it, peach is also a good option. I am also not so sure wood matters all that much, although in my mind, I prefer fruit woods.

One way to create some more flavor is with a finishing dust. You can make a dust by grinding a normal BBQ rub into a fine powder, this along with some defatted drippings, added back to the pork makes for a fine flavor kick.

I also use a basic injection (similar to Chris Lilly's) and a heavy dry rub with brown sugar and ground coffee as the main components (along w/ground pepper, paprika, salt, chipotle pepper, cumin, garlic powder, and a few others), wrap, and let it sit overnight until I throw it on the WSM. As for wood, I tend to use about 75% apple and 25% oak bourbon barrel staves. Turns out fantastic. Here are a few pics of some recent ones I've done.

http://instagram.com/p/daIqr-B2nM/
http://instagram.com/p/cnSnWMB2gb/
http://instagram.com/p/cnSjxvB2gO/

Ok for a pork injection use a 2-3% solution. 2 gms salt per 100 cc =2% sol
Chris Lilly's Recipe calls for 1 1/4 cup of liquid a little less than 300 cc. So you need 6 gms of salt for a 2% solution or a little more than a teaspoonful. You can always add a little more salt after the cook to the pulled product. Chris Lilly's recipe has 16 times the amount of salt as does a 2% solution but his recipe is for competition judging and for one knockout bite. Also you may get differences if you inject in the spaces between the muscle groups as opposed to infiltrating the muscle itself. The difference in a subcutaneous injection and a intramuscular injection.

That is awesome feedback. Thanks much.

Good stuff, thanks.