boston butt

[tulsatkd]

I plan on smoking at 8 butt tomorrow. Would it be OK to trim most of the cap and replace it with bacon for the cook?

 

[DanPop]

I'm a bacon lover, but I just don't think you could get a whole lot of flavor from it on a butt. Nothing wrong with trying it and letting us know!

 

[Westexbbq]

I don't know,
never tried it.
It seems to me the bacon would eventually get kinda weird after a long while during the cook.
Not sure if it would work as good as the natural fat cap does.
As per above, try it and see.

 

[sdb25]

Ditch the fat cap and try the bacon. Just hit it with some rub before you put the bacon on.

 

[bigabyte]

Worth a try I suppose. Let us know how it turns out.

 

[Midnight Smoke]

I would leave the Fat cap alone, unless it is excessive. I have trimmed and not trimmed, I think about a 1/4" is enough. Fat's fat!

 

[BRBBQ]

I always cutcap off, put bacon on and let us know what you think

 

[EatRBBQ]

I wrap Boston Butt shoulders, fat and all, in Pig skin and tie it all tight with cooking string. Smoke it low and slow... you end up with pulled pork more like whole roast hog.

I have wondered what wrapping in thick cut bacon would produce. Let us know, show us pictures, ship some samples. :-D

 

[tulsatkd]

Ready for the grill
4 hours on
Sauted veggies for the baked beans

Beef shoulder for the beans

 

[D-BE-QUEIN224]

nice!

 

[Chef Jim]

Chris, glad to see your old avatar back.

 

[bigabyte]

Can't wait to hear the results! Looks good at the 4 hour mark. That bacon might make for some SERIOUS chunks of Mr. Brown....I'm thinking Pig Candy here...

If it doesn't work out, I may just do some regular pulled pork and add in chopped Pig Candy. Good farking heavens, I think I want this NOW!

 

[Mo-Dave]

I cut the cap off. After the bacon cooks up take it off and eat it or throw it in with the beans.
Dave

 

[sdb25]

Looks great! Let us know how things turn out. Are you gonna slice it or pull it? And if you are gonna pull it, are you gonna mix the bacon in?

 

[tulsatkd]

I'm going to pull it. I was going to put all the bacon in the beans but adding some to the pork once it is pulled sounds great.

I just grabed another package of bacon out of the fridg. so I will add that to the pork.

 

[tulsatkd]

Turned out pretty good, but I think I prefer it with the cap on. Not sure if the bacon had anything to do with it but I didn't have as much of a smoke flavor as I normally get. I also used mostly apple instead of hickory, so I am sure that had something to do with it aswell. Next time I will probably just smoke the bacon on the side and add it to the pork.

 

[sdb25]

Apple is super mild compared to hickory. That's probably the biggest difference.

 

[landarc]

What he said, the lesser smoke flavor is the switch from hickory to apple.

 

[tulsatkd]

Thanks, I'll probably reserve apple wood for poultry. And my trusted hickory for everything else.

 

[Dave Russell]

Hey, neat experiment. You never learn til you try, right? You'd probably like bacon over pork loin for the added flavor and fat.

As for the smoke, I find that I want at least SOME hickory smoke for pork shoulder and brisket. Here, as in some other parts of Tennessee at least, "BBQ" is short for "hickory smoked BBQ". I do prefer to mix it with peach or apple from a local orchard, though.