Quick Cook Boston Butt

monkeyboysbbq said:

Anyone ever tried this?

http://www.kickassbbq.com/Quick_Cook_Boston_Butt.htm

I am cooking some BBQ for my daughter's birthday party tomorrow, and thought about trying it this way.

Any thoughts?

Click to expand...

Ed has a pretty thorough run down of his method in this thread, with input from the pack too:

http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18417

I see no reason it wouldn't work...I've read a lot of top bbq cooks cook at 300*. I would make sure I had enough smoke right off because of the short time in the cooker before covering in foil.

Let us know how it works out...

I've done it several times, with temps closer to 330° to 350°. I do keep an eye on the color of the meat and tent if needed before Ed's recommended times.

Yup....just like the other folks have said, the method works. Just keep an eye on the color, like Thirdeye said and hit it with a good amount of smoke up front, per Papa Hogg.

From my experience, the texture (at least for brisket) isn't quite like it would be from low and slow, but most people that aren't serious q hounds probably wouldn't notice a difference.

I tried it once or twice too when I had the chargriller and didn't have time to babysit. Turned out good.

It works, but you still need time at the end for the meat to rest. I often hold meat cooked like this for 6-8 hours before pulling...the texture doesn't suffer if you allow the rest time. One key is to use blankets or towels to cover the pan instead of a cooler...the cooler holds the heat a lot longer and the meat can get a bit mushy.

I've done speedy butts a number of times with good results. I inject heavily, cook hot and fast to a bit higher internal temp than normal (200 to 205). I foil them at 160 internal or when I think they have a nice color. As mentioned, they need to rest afterward and I do avoid trying to hold in too much heat so they don't turn to mush.

I've been having some excellent results with 5-hour packers (avg 13 lb), but I've not been particularly thrilled with 100% high-heat butts so far. I'm quite pleased with the texture of the fast packers, but less happy with the greasier texture of the fast-cooked pork. It appears to me that the rendering process is not working as well with the slower pork cooks so far, so I'm still trying to tweak my approach to get through that problem and figure out what I'm doing wrong. I contemplated a higher acid content in my injection, but I tried that once and wound up with mush. Typically, I still prefer just to run the butts all the way through at 240-250-ish with no foiling at all until they come off the cooker, but do sometimes speed them up in the latter half of the cook. Gonna have to study up on Ed's post as mentioned above and get a little more education on the matter.

That being said, if I know that I'm going to run into time issues, I do keep the temp down on them at LEAST until they reach 165-ish. Then, if I'm running out of time, I'll double-foil them, add a little savory/sweet liquid concoction, and run the cooker up to 325 or so to finish them up. (Or, if I'm just cooking at home and I'm on the way to running out of fuel toward the end of the cook and don't want to reload, I have no compunction whatsoever to setting the kitchen oven on 325 and transferring the well-wrapped butts to the oven on sheet pans to finish up. Heat is heat when you're sealed in foil.) Drain out a little liquid before wrapping in towels and polar fleece tag ends from Walmart and into the cooler they go. (If tenderness is where I want it when it comes off, I leave the foil open for 10 minutes or so to help slow down the cooking process so good meat going in doesn't become mush coming out.) Keep the juice, cool it in a separator, defat it, and mix the resulting pig jello into your butt moisturizer of choice to add to the meat when you pull it. My quart mason jars labeled "butt juice" do tend to raise some eyebrows upon occasion - serves 'em right to worry, if they're poking around in my cooking area where they don't belong! :icon_pissed ( :wink: )

Keri C, still smokin' on Tulsa Time

It works like a charm, just trim all the fat off first.

Jordan, you may have just solved my problem. When doing long cooks on butts, I got in the habit of not trimming a lot of the fat cap / false cap off and cooking it fat side down. The few times I've tried a full-blown fast cook on butts, I don't think I trimmed the caps off of them then either. I'm going to pick up a case of butts today, so I will get my knife in gear. I don't know why I didn't think about that when trying the fast cooks... it makes perfect sense <insert "I FEEL STUPID" icon here...>. Thanks!

Keri C, still smokin' on Tulsa Time

Thanks for the update monkeyboy...I might have to try this

Thanks for the update!

Did anyone else comment on food difference.?

Thanks for your report, Monkeyboy. I'm going to try your approach next time I do just a couple of butts. Evidently I just need to be more aggressive in trimming the fat cap for this quicker pork cook.

Thank you! -Keri C