Injected vs non-injected, backyard butt battle live.

[landshark530]

So I've been wanting to improve my pork butts a and have been researching injected vs non-injected versions but there doesn't seem to be a clear consensus. I wanted to know the following?
Is injecting worth in on the average 8-10 pound butts I'm buying?
Is the flavor different, better, etc.
Is there a difference in smoking time with the additional moisture. The butt got about 10-12 ounces of injection.
Is there a measurable difference in tenderness, or even a noticeable difference.
Is injecting a complete waste of time?


So I'm doing my own little throwdown on the smokemaster.
2 8# butts toe to toe... or butt to butt, one injected and one not. To sweeten my test my neighbor, who's from Texas, loves bbq, and is regularly seen licking my windows when my pit is fired up brought me a butt to smoke.

He's had my cue plenty of times and loves it, so he'll also get an injected butt in a "your taste buds are blind" taste test.

I injected the butts last night while still in their packages and rubbed them up this morning.

The butts hit the pit at 0800, I'll update hourly as I push through the hunny do list.

Using apple oak and some hickory for my offset.

[Ol Hickory]

forgive my ignorance. I have only ever injected briskets. What do you use to inject butts?

[landshark530]

If this doesn't turn out to be an epic fail I'll let you know the exact concoction.

1 hour in and the texas college butt is at 117 degrees. The pits running 275 +/- 20.

I'll the temp probe into one of those cheesehead butts when the college butt gets wrapped, it's a bit smaller and firmer than the others.

[T&S BBQ]

I started out injecting, now just smoke till color then wrap. Turns out great.

[ebijack]

:pop2::pop2:

[Fwismoker]

My thoughts have always been why add flavors before the cook when you can add them after the cook via a finishing sauce.

If I wasn't using a finishing sauce I'd be curious if an injection could really add some favor.

[landshark530]

If I wasn't using a finishing sauce I'd be curious if an injection could really add some favor.

Hopefully I can answer that question.

10:00 am and the small butt is in the fast lane. 150 degrees and cruising right along.

11:00 am and the small but is at 154 degrees and doing good.

[Decoy205]

I think injections are good for adding some salt to the inside of a large cut. It's not necessary but can turn out good results.

[itschris]

This exactly what I did to get where I'm at now. I did side by sides like you in varying combinations for about a year with blind tastings from family and friends to get a consensus. Time after time the results where the same... No injection, fat cap down, and foiled. The only benign thing was the mustard slather...no one ever noticed a difference either way but I do it anyway to help the rub stick most times. Good luck...take good notes and find your way Grasshopper!!!

[Fire Flinger]

I think injections are good for adding some salt to the inside of a large cut. It's not necessary but can turn out good results.

If you want to add salt to the interior of the meat would you ever consider brining with a relatively strong brine solution or do you think the meat is just too thick for that method to work?

[pga7602]

Finally... please let us know if injecting is a waste of time.

[landshark530]

12:00 pm and the small butt is at 160, be foiling that sweet butt soon.

1pm pm and all the butts are wrapped, they all hit 165 or better.

[landshark530]

If you want to add salt to the interior of the meat would you ever consider brining with a relatively strong brine solution or do you think the meat is just too thick for that method to work?

From my research there are theories that the salt is a carrier of the flavor, and then then the vinegar opens the pores on the meat so that it can absorb more flavor. So a injection with vinegar and salt seems to be what I see in injection recipes.

I have Marvin's book that he uses a ton of MSG (accent, etc) in his injection.

We used to use that in my culinary art classes in the 80's when doing production cooking, by the handful. I haven't used it in years do to health problems and issues people say it creates.

MSG, as I learned back in the day, works to open up the pores on your tongue so you supposedly taste more, at least that's what our instructor chef told us as he throws hand fulls of msg into a pile of steamed vegies.

[landshark530]

Picture at 1pm foiling.

I always think that these butts are getting done way too fast, that I'm missing the 8+ hour "low and slow", but 4~5 hours is my normal foiling time frame.

[landshark530]

2:15 pm. The small butt came off and is resting.

The bigger buts are in the 170's a moving along nicely.

3:30 pm buts at 190, they are both foiled in a separate pan with a little apple juice.

4:30 pm, one butt hit 200 and came off and is resting in the cooler. I didn't peek so I done know if it's the injected butt.

My neighbor picked up his college butt and I'm waiting for his report. He has twin teenagers who spend the summer in Texas and they have bbq tastebuds....so I have a mini panel of judges.

[landshark530]

Injected butt finished first.

[landshark530]

Non injected took another 45 minutes.

[Demosthenes9]

So I've been wanting to improve my pork butts a and have been researching injected vs non-injected versions but there doesn't seem to be a clear consensus. I wanted to know the following?
Is injecting worth in on the average 8-10 pound butts I'm buying?
Is the flavor different, better, etc.
Is there a difference in smoking time with the additional moisture. The butt got about 10-12 ounces of injection.
Is there a measurable difference in tenderness, or even a noticeable difference.
Is injecting a complete waste of time?


So I'm doing my own little throwdown on the smokemaster.
2 8# butts toe to toe... or butt to butt, one injected and one not. To sweeten my test my neighbor, who's from Texas, loves bbq, and is regularly seen licking my windows when my pit is fired up brought me a butt to smoke.

He's had my cue plenty of times and loves it, so he'll also get an injected butt in a "your taste buds are blind" taste test.

I injected the butts last night while still in their packages and rubbed them up this morning.

The butts hit the pit at 0800, I'll update hourly as I push through the hunny do list.

Using apple oak and some hickory for my offset.


What little I know on this is that answers to some of the questions that you asked all depend on what you inject with. It's like with marinades. Some might just add flavor, others might break the meat down and help tenderize it, yet others might help draw liquid into the fibers and help with moisture.

Hopefully others will have specifics as to what kind of ingredients do these various things.

[landshark530]

Here's the rub I used.

1 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons dry mustard
2 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons kosher salt
2 tablespoons course ground pepper.

This is Myron Mixons's basic rub WITHOUT the cayenne. There is just enough kick without it. I also put a nice coating (not heavy) of very course ground pepper on the butts before the rub and slathered them with mustard before doing anything.

The injection the night before was...

1 cup apple juice
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 brown sugar
1/4 cup salt
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons worchestershire sauce.

My panel of judges.

My wife
My daughters male "friend" (I clean my glock and polish my badge when he's around)
3 proud Texan's living next door.

Texans.
9.5 to 8.5. injected wins
8.7 to 8.1 injected wins
9.8 to 9.0 injected wins

the dumb kid.....8.7 to 8.5 injected wins

wife.....injected wins, " I aint got time for your stupid point system".

myself. I actually liked the injected.

The injected cooked faster, but there are several factors that could skew that.
You could definitely taste the flavor from the injection.
The meat did seem to be moister but they were both tender. (I did have a water pan in the smoker)

Smoked with oak, apple, and a few hickory chunks.
275ish, fat cap down, foiled in pan at 165 with 1 cup apple juice.

With THIS rub and THIS injection, the injected butt won hands down.

Thanks for the comments and posts.

[COS]

I think that was a pretty strong injection with the soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce. I injected my pork butts a few times, mainly for moisture and a little more flavor. I gave up for thinking it didn't add much and not worth it, mine always turned out good. My injections were just cider vinegar and juice not as strong as yours.

[Fwismoker]

You're basically sorta kinda injecting my finishing sauce. Great job, really glad it worked out. I'll be happy to experiment on my next one.

[Free Mr. Tony]

I've always liked my injected versus non butts, but I've never gotten overly comparative between the two.

[code3rrt]

Thanks for doing all that work and sharing your results, much appreciated.:-D

That's a great example of what I really like about this forum!

KC

[cheez59]

I'm glad you did the side by side comparison. IMO it is just common sense that anything that is injected can't help but be better. That last few butts I've done were noticeably better and they were all injected. They all have cooked faster and I have had many more compliments on my pulled pork than ever before. It takes like 5 minutes to inject so I say why not.

[Brisketbloke]

Nice thread guys. I've put a 5kg (11 lb) butt on this morning at 6.40am UK time. I've injected with Chris Lilly's championship injection and rubbed with Pitt Cues house rub. I've set the temperature at 105°c (220°f). Wrap or not to wrap, that is the question. Any advice would be good. I'll let you all know how I get on later.

[preacher238]

Here's the rub I used.

1 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons dry mustard
2 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons kosher salt
2 tablespoons course ground pepper.

This is Myron Mixons's basic rub WITHOUT the cayenne. There is just enough kick without it. I also put a nice coating (not heavy) of very course ground pepper on the butts before the rub and slathered them with mustard before doing anything.

The injection the night before was...

1 cup apple juice
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 brown sugar
1/4 cup salt
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons worchestershire sauce.

My panel of judges.

My wife
My daughters male "friend" (I clean my glock and polish my badge when he's around)
3 proud Texan's living next door.

Texans.
9.5 to 8.5. injected wins
8.7 to 8.1 injected wins
9.8 to 9.0 injected wins

the dumb kid.....8.7 to 8.5 injected wins

wife.....injected wins, " I aint got time for your stupid point system".

myself. I actually liked the injected.

The injected cooked faster, but there are several factors that could skew that.
You could definitely taste the flavor from the injection.
The meat did seem to be moister but they were both tender. (I did have a water pan in the smoker)

Smoked with oak, apple, and a few hickory chunks.
275ish, fat cap down, foiled in pan at 165 with 1 cup apple juice.

With THIS rub and THIS injection, the injected butt won hands down.

Thanks for the comments and posts.

First off, thank you for standing in the gap in the field of Law Enforcement.

Secondly, thank you for this test. It validates what I do with my pork butts.

Thirdly, thanks for the injection recipe! Gonna use that next time!

[Brisketbloke]

My first time injected butt hit 192°f internal temperature after 11 hours. I hit a stall about 6 hours in, so spritzed with vinegar, double wrapped in foil and maintained 220°f. Removed and rested for an hour. Then pulled. It was beautiful and soft with a nice smoke ring. I will be using this method again, and might try the vinegar injection that land shark suggested. Thanks for all the tips bros.

[landshark530]

If you try the injection the original recipe called for 1/2 cup salt, not 1/4 cup.

I cut the salt in have just to cut the salt, and I figured the soy sauce and worcestershire would already have high salt content.

The butts were not salty at all, and you could just taste a hint of the worcestershire, but none of the soy (which was good).:thumb:

[gtr]

I started out not wanting to inject 'cause I'm a lazy bastige, but after a few trials I couldn't deny that I got better results with injecting. I'll use the Chris Lilly recipe (with salt cut in half) and sometimes I used smoked pork stock that I make from bones from whole pig cooks, and sometimes I'll just kinda mash the 2 together. The last pig I did was the first one I injected and people who have been to several of my pig roasts could tell I had done something different and really liked it.

Not injecting is fine as well - I've certainly been very happy with just straight up pulled pork cooks, but when there's a little bit of time to play with, I'll be shooting those things up - if it makes the end product taste a little better ubetchurass I'll do it.

Great thread - thanks for putting it up!

[Decoy205]

That pulled pork looks phenomenal!! Thank you for taking the time to post your results.

[BigOldMrKnish]

I always find injection to result in a faster cook