Tough Pork Butt

Almost had things perfected on my ECB and moved up to a UDS. Now, I'm still trying to get this smoking and UDS thing perfected.

On my way home from an out-of-town family party, at about 10:30 pm on Saturday, I had a craving for pulled pork. So, I stopped in at Mejiers and picked up a SMALL 4.5 lbs bone-in pork butt. When I got home, I threw some Yardbird on it and threw it in the refrigerator.

At 8:30 am on Sunday, I lit my UDS with about 1.5 chimney's of unlit and 1/2 of lit, and a few chunks of hickory on top of the lit. It settled in at a solid 205* on the side and 235* in the middle. I thought that was perfect, so in went the pork butt just before 10:00 am.

The UDS was rock solid on temp. I checked on it every hour or so and didn't have to do any adjustments. After 4 hours, I flipped the butt so it was now fatcap up and stuck a thermometer in the meat - 152*. Smoker was at 235* so.... it slowly rose and then hit the leveled out for an hour and then slowly rose some more. At 6:00 (8 hours) pm it was up to around 172*. The natives were starting to get restless, so I threw some foil on it and raised the smoker to around 275* at the center. It started to come up quickly after that.

Around 7:15 pm, it hit 195*. The probe seemed to slide in and clear juice, but it was tough. And the meat wasn't pulling from the bone. I wanted to cook longer but I needed to serve. I removed it and foiled it for another 20 minutes and then pulled it. The meet was done, dry and extremely tough. It was tough to pull apart. It had a real dark, ~1" deep pink smoke ring. Taste/flavored was very good, just tough and dry.

Was my problem just not cooking long enough? I ended up doing about 2 hours per pound. I'm used to smoking up at 275* and am always done in under 1.5hours/#. Was this just the difference with 235*? Do the small cuts take longer? Did I just get a bad cut of meat? (First time doing one this small, and first from Meijer).

Any help you can give a new guy would be appreciated.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

This was my third time doing pulled pork. The first two were 7# on my ECB. They turned out great, even though my temps were usually too high and they got done too early. But yeah, with those I pulled them at ~202* and they were done and tasty.

I'm not sure what happened this time. I'll check my two thermometers. The one on the side was brand new from Spicewine (because they look so cool). I was in too much of a hurry to calibrate it. The other was a 12" turkey fryer that if I stick it in the lid on an angle end up right next to the grate next to the pork.... I checked it with boiling water and it was close. Maybe it was two charcoals... I had more than enough and some left over.

I guess I just need more practice.... oh darn!

prudog said:

So... if pressed for time, I now cook at a higher temp to start and then ramp down to let the meat "rest" and redistribute juices. Inverting my cook temps put my quality back to where it had been for years before I bought that cooker/controller.

Click to expand...

Good tip. I'll remember that.

Thanks all for the tips. This is good. I didn't expect this much response. I'll have to see if I can try another one this weekend... but my wife likes me to rotate types of meat. I think Chicken might be this Sunday. Guess I can use it to check my thermometers and temps.