Competition Test Cooking (3) - Pork Butt

Previously I posted our test cooks for chicken and brisket, and again thanks for all the advise. Our first competition is still 4 months away and yesterday the adventure continued with pork butt. Since my last post the head cook has attended a judges class and is pre-registered at a couple of events, hopefully he can judge at least once before we cook. One team member has a new pellet smoker and has never smoked a butt.... so he was in charge of cooking two trimmed down butts. The kale boxes are getting easier to build, so we stuck with that garnish. We're cooking everything at 275°, so we stuck with that pit temp. We looked through about 30 examples of boxes, and picked four to use as a guide.

The good: Good balanced flavor and moistness. Tenderness was very good. We actually wound up with more (box worthy) pulled than we needed, and it all came from the horn and the little layer of strands that lives just under the fat cap. One butt's injection was Kosmo's + water, the other was Kosmos + apple/white grape. We liked them both.

The bad: We opted to cook this practice run in pans and the smoker was crowded. I think the pans influenced the airflow and confused the thermostat because we had temp swings. And even though the butts were wrapped at 155°, we overshot the color of the bark. The money muscles were skimpy and we had to also use the next inboard muscle for some of the slices.

The ugly: We allowed 15 minutes to breakdown each butt and get the meat into the box, the first one took 20 minutes... is this normal for most teams, or do boxes get easier to build as time goes on? The boxes were full and weighty, but is that too many choices for a novice team to submit? Is it safer to go with 6 slices and some pulled? The cook didn't have a de-fatter, so we weren't able to dip the meats in juice... but we thinned some sauce and tried to make due.

For next time: We'll only cook one butt and fine tune the cooking and resting time table. I'll probably go a tick stronger on the injection to push out more porky flavor. We'll do a traditional wrap instead of just covering the pan.

Here are photo's of the finished boxes for comment.


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DUBBAGA said:

Disclaimer: I only judge what's in the box ... blah blah blah ... whatever



First Box - very busy ... the left portion of pulled/chunks do not look as appetizing as the others ... I would consolidate the center and right piles into one ... fanning out the slices as opposed to submitting a turd shaped log (I've done it, and got slammed by judges) is preferable ... I wouldn't submit the bottom MM due to the shape inconsistency (not concerned with the appearance aspect, I'd be more afraid that one end will have different tenderness than the other, thereby giving a swing for judging)


Bottom Box - much better ... I have no justification for this, but having the right section of MM facing away from me as a judge looks weird (can't say it would impact my score, but it would result in me looking longer at the box than I generally do when I see a "9") ... I would use this box, keep the pulled in the front, change the direction of the right MM, and fan them both out

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We wondered about one pile instead of three. Below is one of the box pictures we had saved as a model. Agree about the bottom slices in box #1, would cubes have been better... or leave them out all together?

The direction of slices in box #2 didn't even catch our until we were ready to sample but you are correct.

Model box:

Ron_L said:

I agree with this. I am not a fan of the MM being presented in one 'piece' like the left one. It just looks too much like a turd :shock:

As far as breaking down the butts and building the box, pork is out longest box to build. We start it at 12:40 and it is usually out the door no later than 1:00. There is no way that you can spend 15-20 minutes on one butt at a competition unless you have a parallel effort, someone doing chicken and ribs, and someone doing pork at the same time?

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Hehehee, we referred to them as hog turds too, but had seen so many boxes online that presented the slices that way. Fanning recommendation noted!

On the timing... if you start at 12:40, that's 20 minutes until 1:00. Or do you mean at 12:40 your butt is all broken down, muscles sliced etc.... and you spend 20 minutes on assembly alone??

tduffy said:

Box 1 does not look good. The slices on the bottom of the box do not look good. I'd have a hard time believing the smaller slices would be as moist as the bigger ones. Second box looks much better.

My advice as a cook is to put your Best 6 slices in the box. Then pulled, or chunks or whatever else you have that is your BEST. No need for multiple piles of it, keep it simple and clean. Your second box you posted you could have just put that fanned out row of slices right above your pulled and it would be an awesome box. The more options you put in a box, the more opportunities you give the judges to taste something that isn't as up to par as something else and lower your scores.

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All good points, and afterwards we realized one rectangular area of pulled would have been much easier to deal with and to shape. We probably did novice overthinking on the options because we had so much meat to choose from: 1) the pile of pulled on the right had bark on most pieces... 2) the pile of pulled on the left was longer pieces and my favorite for texture and, 3) and the middle pile was basically shorter chunks.

The camera is brutal. I snapped photo's minutes before the tasting party, and looking at them today I saw all kinds of little flaws three of us missed.

jermoQ said:

As a judge only, my first glance says the second box is better looking. On second glance, I think it is weird that you have slices arranged two different ways, and it makes the box look strange! Pick one version (I like the fanned out version but they both will look good) and go with it. I think it would look good if you still made the V with the slices. The color of all of it is great, so that part looks good to me! As far as garnish, I dont give a flying chicken neck about it as long as it isnt on top of the meat. I only look at it long enough to see that it is legal. You could have a judge (not me) see the hole in the middle and think it is not full enough?

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The order of the photos is the order that we build the boxes, and we only used meat from one butt per box... so no meat from one butt was substituted. We'll be cooking at least two butts at the comp. I like the second box better myself and between building boxes we joked that since box 1 was our first pork box ever, we would be twice as experienced when we finished box 2. :mrgreen:

Fanning seems to be winning out over not fanning for now, and thanks for the color comments.

Ron_L said:

Nope. Butts out of the cambro at 12:40, box out the door at 1:00 at the latest. For chicken we start on the box at 11:50, ribs at 12:15 and brisket at 1:15.

The bulk of the butt time is breaking down three butts and deciding what goes into the box. Assembling the box and doing final QA is only a couple of minutes.

But, we've been doing it for 10 years

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There is no way that you can spend 15-20 minutes on one butt at a competition unless you have a parallel effort, someone doing chicken and ribs, and someone doing pork at the same time?

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Ron, I must have misunderstood what you were saying... I thought you were implying that there is no way to break down and box in only 15 or 20 minutes and expect good results.

Our plan for now is for each guy to take the lead on different meats and have one guy help. This frees up guy #3 to have a little head start (if needed) on the next meat. I just don't want to get luxurious with the time.

West River BBQ said:

I agree with everything said above. I would have liked the last box more if there was more bark included in the pulled pork. I've seen ice-cream scoops of pork and it just seemed that it would be mushy (turned out to be true too). I know you's isn't an ice-cream scoop, but to me the bark would have added another dimension.

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That was on our mind, but it's a fine line between impressing 6 judges, or not offending 2 out of 6 judges. Many judges don't cook, and I don't mean just not cook barbecue.... but they might not even cook easy things over live fire like burgers, steaks or a prime rib. Meaning... if they don't have the opportunity to develop a taste for something like bark, they could find it offensive. I can't tell you the number of judges I've seen comment about entries that are only slightly spicier, or smokier than the norm.

gettinbasted said:

It takes 25 minutes to breakdown pork and build my box. Your instinct about bark is the correct one. Don’t do it unless you know what you’re doing. Below is a link to a video showing me building my box. This box has won the last three team of the years in pork, 2 180s at the Royal and a Jack Daniels World Pork Championship with a perfect 180. Time to switch it all up!

Best of luck!

https://youtu.be/Weh-OloCeqM

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I discovered that video several months ago and like it for two reasons.... one is because the lack of narration makes the viewer really watch (and re-watch) and pay attention to the the various steps. Two, is the 2X or 3X speed as some instructional videos take 2 or 3 minutes to make a basic point. At about 2:00, what is the name (or nickname) for the pieces the person with the blue gloves is cleaning up for your pulled meat? I'm assuming those are the same little layer of strands that lives just under the fat cap I mentioned in my first post. I've worked the pits and cutting table for many years at an event where we breakdown 12 to 15 butts, which are only lightly trimmed. So when pulling and slicing butts I remove the cap including that layer of strands and one of us will scrape the rendered fat and put those strands in foil juice so us cooks can have a special treat when the serving line slows down.... just never knew if it had a real name.