Pork Butts; Brine,Inject or Not?

B

Black Dog BBQ

Guest
I've had pretty good luck cooking butts the last couple of years, but I want to up my game. I will be cooking 14 butts for a benefit in a couple of weeks and was wondering if a brine or an injection would be in order.

My usual process is fairly basic. A rub, then into the pit, cap down, for the duration. I have been known to foil the butts at 165-170 once in a while, the only difference I've noticed is the cook time and color and texture of the bark.

What is the prevailing Brethern opinion on the relative benefits of brining and or injecting. (BTW I do brine my chicken and turkeys and love the way they turn out)

BD
 
If you're going to sauce everything, then the injection probably isn't needed. However, I prefer un-sauced pulled pork that's been injected so that the flavors get deep into the meat and it helps retain moisture.

For that reason above, I do inject.

As far as brining, I never found that it helped or changed much (ala. was a waste of effort).

I do foil and I foil for the exact reasons that you state above.
 
Thanks I appreciate your input. I've never tried injecting but I might give it a go.
 
If you are serving a small # of people (which you aren't if you are cooking 14 butts) and want to impress - go with the Chris Lily recipe for cooking. It uses injection and foil. I know I am a northern boy and we don't get a lot of BBQ love up here but when I smoke a butt Chris Lily style... People just love it. I am inundated with compliments.

P.S
You can of course do this for a large # but it will take you some time to inject 14 butts. I would probably pass on the foil as well. Too much time spent to foil all those butts... plus you don't want to keep opening your cooker.
 
I always inject butts to add moisture and a little extra flavor. I believe it produces a better product.

I have tried cooking boston butt once without injecting and still produced a good product. I do prefer the injected.
 
I inject for comps and foil in a pan all the time at around 160 degrees, or when the color is where I want it. But with that many butts on the smoker, I would NOT inject. Just my .02.

Good luck with your cook!!
 
I've noticed a big difference in the amount of juices collected when I inject and foil over just foiling... Probably double the juice.

Try this, Inject 1/2 and foil them and just rub/ no foil the other 1/2, you can combine the pulled meat from the 2 types when done to get the best of both, darker color & better bark but also more juice and flavor. Also less work injecting and foiling only 1/2 of them...

I just use apple juice with a small amount of salt added to it for the injection
 
Id make injection with a 2 gallons of apple juice plus salt and a few finely ground seasonings If you have the 2 in one packs just leave them in the plastic and shoot them up. I wouldnt worry about foiling for the reasons Jaskew82 says.

I just stab a hole and pull the nearly nearly 90% out and push the needle in 7-8 different angles pretty quickly. do this in 3-4 holes in each. This will get plenty of injection throughout the butt very quickly without it leaking out all over the place. Should only take 10 mintes. It will be worth it.
 
I don't brine pork but I do inject the butts, using apple juice or a mixture of apple and cranberry juice. I hit several places on the butt and move it through different angles while injecting. I don't put too much in each spot or else it wants to squirt back out and is just wasted effort. It only takes a matter of second to do each butt.
I also foil, but as said above, 14 is a lot of butts to wrap. I know people that are vendors and sell pulled pork commercially, and even though they do a large number of butts at a time, they still foil them. Of course, they have their routine down pretty well. If you have a helper, I suppose you could get them pulled out of the smoker pretty quickly, maybe even just doing 3 or 4 at a time. Pull them out and get the lid closed quickly.
 
I didn't inject until this last year, and I've been liking the results of injecting with Chris Lily's recipe but with 1/2 the salt. I did it with 12 butts a few months ago for a fundraiser and moved every morsel of it. It will add time to yer cook, but that kind of thing never bothers me - if I think it's gonna make a better product, I'll do it regardless.

I think KnucklHed has a very interesting idea with doing 1/2 & 1/2. It's also a way for you to get a definitive observation on the benefits of injecting/not injecting and you can see what you like best. I've cooked a lot of butts over the years, but that run of 12 brought a lot of things into sharp focus for me, esp. when it comes to proper doneness, sufficient resting time, did everything render, etc.
 
jeffboyette said:
Id make injection with a 2 gallons of apple juice plus salt and a few finely ground seasonings If you have the 2 in one packs just leave them in the plastic and shoot them up. I wouldnt worry about foiling for the reasons Jaskew82 says.

I just stab a hole and pull the nearly nearly 90% out and push the needle in 7-8 different angles pretty quickly. do this in 3-4 holes in each. This will get plenty of injection throughout the butt very quickly without it leaking out all over the place. Should only take 10 mintes. It will be worth it.
Click to expand...

gtr said:
I didn't inject until this last year, and I've been liking the results of injecting with Chris Lily's recipe but with 1/2 the salt. I did it with 12 butts a few months ago for a fundraiser and moved every morsel of it. It will add time to yer cook, but that kind of thing never bothers me - if I think it's gonna make a better product, I'll do it regardless.

I think KnucklHed has a very interesting idea with doing 1/2 & 1/2. It's also a way for you to get a definitive observation on the benefits of injecting/not injecting and you can see what you like best. I've cooked a lot of butts over the years, but that run of 12 brought a lot of things into sharp focus for me, esp. when it comes to proper doneness, sufficient resting time, did everything render, etc.
Click to expand...

Just curious, was his recipe just too salty or did you cut it back for another reason?
 
I actually cut back on the salt after reading some posts on here. I started with 1/2 the amt. of salt, tasted it, and it was clear to me that adding more salt was not something I wanted to do - the decision was based on taste.

If I understand correctly, his recipe is a comp recipe and apparently comp recipes tend to exaggerate flavors in order to make an impression on judges with one or 2 bites.
 
Having cooked cases of pork butt for events (both as a solo and group cooks)... haven't found a reason to inject or brine butts.
The additional steps, timetable, labor, and capacity for a liquid mess didn't intrigue me... since butts are far from a dry piece of meat.

However I do add a cocktail mixture of various flavors during the pulling of the pork.
 
For butts, I would suggest injecting, not brining. The times I tried brining the flavors never penetrated more than maybe 1/2 an inch or so into the meat. Take a look at the Green Eggs and Ham thread that was recently posted to see a clear example of how far a brine penetrated a butt, because the color only goes about a half inch or so into that.

Injecting can be the same as brining really, except you are exposing the interior of the meat to the liquid immediately, and while resting the salts in the injection can work the same magic that brines do.

I don't normally inject however. It's just added cost and time to me, and not worth it. I'm talking about cooking to feed delicious food to family and friends however, not to make the biggest possible impression possible on judges.
 
AMoore said:
I would like to try the injection method. Can you please assist with a recipe for doing so.
Click to expand...

One of the very simplest and is the basis for most others is apple juice, worchestershire sauce, and a little of the rub you're using. This is a stripped down version of Lilly's which has more salt and water in it.
 
BBQ Bandit said:
Having cooked cases of pork butt for events (both as a solo and group cooks)... haven't found a reason to inject or brine butts.
The additional steps, timetable, labor, and capacity for a liquid mess didn't intrigue me... since butts are far from a dry piece of meat.

However I do add a cocktail mixture of various flavors during the pulling of the pork.
Click to expand...


Care to share anything about this cocktail?
 
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