First Pork Butt in WSM

[vicdavery]

Hi All,
Just got a new WSM 18.5 and yesterday did my first pork butt.
It didn't come out as I'd hoped so I was looking for some suggestions for next time.

This is what I did:
It was a 4 pound, no bone butt
I salted 12 hours prior to cooking and then rubbed with Meathead's Memphis Dust before cooking.
Kept the smoker in the 225-235 zone pretty well (I'm using a ET-732). Empty water bath. The meat was on the top rack

The stall came and the meat stuck at 154 for ages. I put the meat on at 9am, hoping it would be done in time for dinner.
At 5pm it was still stuck, so I cranked the temp up to about 270 and eventually up to 300.

Finally the meat started to climb, but not fast enough for dinner.

Ended up pulling it off the grill at 8:30pm, the meat was at 183 at that point.

The meat had good flavour, had a great bark, but it was quite dry.

Now my question is:
What caused the dryness? Would it have got better if I'd left it to 203F? Or was it the higher temps that caused it to dry?

Any suggestions, gratefully received.
Thanks
Dave.

[Huskee]

Yep, it was the IT of only 183 that caused it to seem dry. See, at that point the meat is well well done, but not hot enough for long enough to have fully rendered all the fats and collagen into juicy deliciousness. Your higher cooking temps were not the culprit, in fact many of us will crank our temp once the stall starts. Pork butts can handle that. Next time allow yourself an absolute minimum of ten hrs, more like 12-14 to be safe if you don't plan to crutch with foil during the stall. Once the meat hits ~200-205 try wrapping it in foil tightly and holding in what we call a faux cambro (cooler, with towels wrapping the foiled meat) for 1-3 more hours. The worst thing to do is rush a pork butt, and the funny thing about it is you think you overcooked it since it's dry, but you really haven't. My first attempt at pulled pork years ago I took the pork butt out at 165, which is what my (outdated and incorrect) thermometer said pork should be cooked to. It was utterly miserable, and I thought I overcooked it!

[vicdavery]

Thanks Huskee.

I suspected that was what had happened. I'll know for next time.

[Jon Solberg]

vic,

Huskees spot on. Just wanted to congratulate you on your inaugural pork butt in the WSM!

[grantw]

Don't roll so low unless you have a lot of time. 225 is warming the meat to death

[grantw]

Especially dry you could have run 275 to 300 easy

[josht138]

I've gotten stuck on my WSM every time I've tried at 225. Each time I've had the meat on at 7 am and had to wrap in foil around 4 pm to power through a stall to finish for dinner time. The bark on the bottom may soften but you can throw it over some Direct heat to dry it out a bit.

[vicdavery]

Thanks guys,
I guess it's all a bit of an experiment. But I was just following the advice on this site in this page: http://amazingribs.com/recipes/porkn...lled_pork.html

I just needed more time. Hey don't we all.