Pork Butt - Bone in Center?

[MtView]

This is a silly question.

I have cooked boneless butts and recently started doing bone-in butts. I have a butt on the smoker now, put a probe in and the temp stayed at 28.9 for over an hour. The butt defrosted in the fridge for three days. I thought the bone would be off to the side, but when I probed it with a Thermopen the temps were consistent and I think the bone is smack dab in the middle.

Is that a strange cut or typical for bone-in pork butt? It's Berkshire from D'Artagna. I repositioned the probe off to the side and it's reading about where I thought it should for 1.5 hours into the cook.

[Richard Chrz]

You likely got the picnic butt. The lower cut of the two.

[CHNeal]

Yep I’d say he bought was sold a picnic ham .

[Donw]

Yep. Here is an image that might explain:

[gboss]

Yes, but that looks to be from a hindquarter, not a shoulder. That's a "fresh ham" on a hog, I believe (aitch bone is part of the pelvis). The bone in the shoulder butt is the shoulder blade Scapula) and the one in the picnic is the humerus.

[Donw]

You are right, didn’t catch that.

[gboss]

Remembering "Aitch" being "H" for "Hip" or "Ham" is what works for my brain to recall this info.

[MtView]

Thank you all. Now I know the difference between the butt and the picnic / shoulder. You can imagine how perplexed I was when the temp wasn't moving.

[smokin fool]

Might have been stuck in the stall too.
I've brought shoulders and butts where the bones are all over the place, either cook longer or up your temp.

[gboss]

To what Richard Chrz was saying, the butt is the left portion of the shoulder in the above image and contains the scapula. The picnic is to the right in the image and contains the humerus.

[Jim White]

So butts aren't humerus, huh?

[DaveD]

Sure they are Jim - you know, "butt of the joke".