Hi everyone. Tomorrow I'm going to attempt to smoke a 5lb butt. Couple questions. Should I brine? Also I won't be serving it until the following day. How do i warm the meat back up without drying it out? Do I shred it the day I smoke it or the following day when i serve it. I will be using my big green egg Thank everyone for any advice, Taterhead.
-
-
Is the butt "enhanced" with solution? If it is, I wouldn't brine. Go ahead and pull it after it's cooked. Easier to do that when it's warm. If you have a crock pot, get out a crock pot liner and just put the pulled pork in there as you work it. Defat some of your pork juice (if you wrap with foil, there will be juice) and use that with a couple of splashes of apple juice for moisture when you reheat in the crock pot.
Oh, and keep the big green egg! -
Yes, definitely brine. A simple dry brine 24 hours in advance is best, but you can get away with only a few hours if in a pinch.
When I am serving the next day I like to take it to about 180 IT or so then pull it off the heat. Keep it whole, do not pull it at this point, but do wrap it in tinfoil (or keep it wrapped if you had it wrapped on the cooker) and refrigerate until a few hours before serving. Re heat still wrapped until you get to 190, then unwrap to dry out the bark a little until it gets to 203 or is probe tender.Comment
-
Hello taterhead. A couple of us answered this in your intro post.
Yes, brine. We recommend dry brining your butt. Trim off all the exterior fat cap that you can first. There's enough interior fat in a pork butt that you don't need any on the outside, it will just be nasty wads of fat in the finished product (unless you don't mind that).
Cover it 360 with 1/2tsp coarse Kosher salt per lb of meat (or about half that (~1/4 tsp) table salt if you can't get Kosher salt). Do this 24 hrs before smoking, or overnight at least. If you're using a rub that has salt in it, then add this rub as the dry brine, 24 hrs prior or overnight. If you dry brine and use a no-salt rub like Meathead's Memphis Dust, add the rub right before it goes on the smoker, it isn't necessary to give it a long time, only the salt.
Here's what I'd do:
If you wrap your meat ("crutch") during smoking, leave it wrapped after it's finished (200 deg or so), let it cool to room temp, then put it in the fridge still wrapped. I recommend wrapping after the stall, not before. If you don't wrap it while cooking, wrap it tightly in foil after cooking, cool to room temp, and put in the fridge wrapped.
The day of serving, heat it back up slowly. Grill, oven, it doesn't mater at this point. I'd say 250-275 is a good cooker/oven reheat temp. Keep it wrapped so as not to dry it out unnecessarily.
Once it hits anywhere from 150+ to 200, pull it out, unwrap it and shred it, and serve ASAP after shredding. Storing the pulled pork in a crock pot on warm/low with the lid on is your best bet IMO. Be sure to save the juices in the foil to add back into the meat.
I don't strain the fat from the collected juice, fat is what gives BBQ its succulent mouth feel. Personally I don't feel there's enough to matter, but we're all different.Comment
-
+1 on what CandySueQ said.... I am a big advocate of wrapping and saving the juice especially when not immediately serving. I run it through a fat strainer and then pour that back in once I have pulled it. Don't worry if it gets somewhat gelatinous when you cool it... It will melt back down once you start to warm the pork up... give it a couple of good stirs and you are good to go!Comment
-
Smoke it, pull it, put in a ziplock freezer bag (or vacuum sealer bag if ya have it) with 1 TBS butter per pound of meat and a splash or two of apple juice. To reheat, just throw in a pot of hot (around 150 - 160) water on the stove about an hour before you're ready to serve.Comment
-
So with the above replies you see that almost anything will work.
The important things are:
brine if not "enhanced" - hopefully overnight as a minimum, but even an hour or two will help and don't forget the rub
cook - most here seem to prefer smoking to probe tender
Crutch or not - your choice, but I'd wrap after the stall since you are not serving right away
shred when done, or just before serving - your choice, but less work at the event if you shred in advance and use a crock pot to reheat/ keep warm. Adding the juices back is important for moistness. I suggest placing a disposable pan below the butt for the whole cook to catch juices, and put a little water in the pan to keep the juices from drying out.
Good luck.Comment
-
Let us know what you ended up doing, how you thought it turned out, and what you would recommend or do different if anything....Comment
Comment