Boneless Pork Shoulder Internal Temp

Friends, I deboned, butterflied, rubbed, rolled and smoked a 4lb pork shoulder roast "Porchetta Style" for New Years.

The problem: It was overdone.

The details:

• Roast appeared to be a whole pork butt sliced in half
• Rolled, I had what looked like a mini-ham. A ~10" conical section maybe 4" dia at one end and 6" at the other.
• Weber 18" WSM
• Kingsford Briquets
• 4 Hickory chunks
• Accurate digital thermometer in the thickest part of the pork and one in the smoker beside the pork at about half the thickness of the roast above the grate.
• Water pan filled, drip pan on lower grate.
• Pork was on the upper grate in the smoker and running @ ~225 @ 2am.
• Checked ~6am and about every half hour thereafter to maintain 225.
• Roast was naked the whole time, no foil.
• Off at 6:30 after 16 1/2 hours at 186 degrees, wrapped in foil and rested 30 mins in a small cooler.

Discussion: I've smoked whole, bone-in butts to 196 or so with great success. Succulent, pulled nicely. My experience cooking them is they get to 170ish, stall for a while and then move on up to the 180s and 190s at a fairly constant pace. This roast seemed to stall twice - 170 and then again around 180. I gave up and finally pulled it at 186 as we were getting to dinner time. We found the meat a bit mushy and dry as compared to a pulled whole butt.



What I'd like is to understand how to get this smaller, boned roast to perfect slicing or pulling doneness. the "190s for slicing and 200 or so for pulling" rule of thumb didn't work so much for me this time. I've searched this forum and others without much success.

Thanks.

Thanks to all of you. That makes sense.

I will go for a slicing temp for this roast next time by running maybe 275 and pulling at 160-170 as you've recommended.