Trying an experiment today, high heat pork butt cooks. Picked up 14lb of pork butt at Sam's yesterday. Covered both in salt, pepper, and garlic powder about an hour before putting them on. Trying to keep the temps between 300-325. Top butt was placed fat side down and will go the entire time unwrapped. Bottom butt was trimmed as much as possible and it was wrapped when the internal temp hit 160. I've read the higher heat cooks result in a slightly drier finish which my wife happens to find desirable so that's what I should get with the unwrapped version. My guess is the wrapped version will be more moist with less of a bark on it. Should have the wrapped one done in a few more hours is my guess then I'll put it in a faux cambro. These photos were taken at the 3:30 mark. Fingers crossed. No matter how they turn out, I find it fun to try these little experiments.
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I tend to cook pork butts between 250 and 275, and often will crank my WSM up to 300-325 to get through the stall. I can't say I've found them to be dryer than when I used to cook at 225-250.
I'll be interested to see what you find out, though -
We've run test like this in the past, and pre-cooked weight and post cooked weight were dramatically different, with considerable less moisture loss at lower temps, but much nicer crusts (color and texture) at the higher temp.
Another method to try here would be a hot and fast similar to brisket - start high in the 300's, then wrap in faux cambro for a few hours.
Interested to hear your results.Comment
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Wrapped butt was done about 30 minutes ago. I didn't have a probe in that one, I was estimating what it would be at compared to the unwrapped and when I checked the wrapped it was 205. It's off and in a faux cambro now as the family is scattered for a few hours. Total cook time was 6 hours. Unwrapped butt is at 192 and chugging along. I hit a real problem about 2.5 hours into the cook where my temps started dropping. I struggled for an hour to keep it above 250 then it took off again. I think I had some damp charcoal. I keep the charcoal in the garage but we've had a lot of rain lately and I'm guessing the humidity may have mucked up my briquets. I don't store them in a container and I just left the bag open. That's my theory anyway and I'm sticking to it
. Finally got temps back up above 275 and it's humming along at 290 now. Not as high as I was planning but enough to minimize the stall. The unwrapped did stall out for 90 minutes then started moving again. I'm sure my boys won't mind going through 14 lbs of pulled pork the next week .
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Boston Boston Butt will forgive almost any temperature.Comment
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Interesting experiment. I've been toying lately with the idea of doing a butt on the rotisserie.Comment
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Well, didn't exactly get the high heat cook I was aiming for and had some issues as you can see but the unwrapped one motored through with a short stall in the middle and at the end getting to 200+. I pulled apart the wrapped one about 20 minutes ago and it was as expected, very moist with no bark. Wife doesn't care for that and she reminded me as I was pulling it apart. I reminded her there's another one still hanging out on the grill. As LA Pork Butt mentioned, it's been pretty forgiving considering my wild temperature swings. Getting ready to drop the temps(hopefully) and let the unwrapped one sit until the family returns.
Here's the wrapped one.
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Final product of the unwrapped butt. This one clearly would have a better bark and it did. Everyone agrees that unwrapped is the way to go in the future, so I learned that! Had a hell of a time with temperature control today. I've had great success with my Weber 22 and SnS but today was off. There were two things different today, this is my first long cook with B&B Natural Oak Briquets and I'm using a new SnS Plus. This is my third bag of B&B and I've been very happy with it. I'm not sure if the bag retained moisture, as I listed above, or if the ash is so thick it has a tough time dropping through the bottom of the Plus. I also started with a few left over from last night but those would have been gone pretty quickly. I finished off my B&B today so I'll be trying Kingsford Professional for a while and see how that goes. Made it through but it wasn't the easiest cook. Fortunately butts are forgiving and the results were just fine. PLENTY of leftovers for the week.
I'll stop cluttering up the feed now
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Very nice! Keep up the experiments and the reporting!Comment
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Both look good to me! Thanks for the report.Comment
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So is this going to be your de facto method going forward, or was there enough difference to go back to 225 again in the future?Comment
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I'd be happy with either one.Comment
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I'm thinking of smoking low at 225 for a couple of hours to give a real deep smoke flavor, then cranking it up to 300 for a quicker cook. I cooked one on Friday at 300 it was good, but didn't have the smoke that I wanted.Comment
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Advantage49 Yep. Wife commented about that as well and I agreed. I was thinking about going that route as well. Low and slow up around to the stall then try to power it through the stall. I'll be very interested to hear your results!
I also made some other errors IMO. I didn't salt the night before, I put everything on about an hour before the cook. I let the butts sit on the counter while I was getting things setup so it didn't go on cold. I didn't spritz to help pull smoke and I didn't throw on any wood chunks. The more I think about it I really wonder what in the hell I was thinking
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Mine was a last minute cookOriginally posted by phoccer View PostAdvantage49 Yep. Wife commented about that as well and I agreed. I was thinking about going that route as well. Low and slow up around to the stall then try to power it through the stall. I'll be very interested to hear your results!
I also made some other errors IMO. I didn't salt the night before, I put everything on about an hour before the cook. I let the butts sit on the counter while I was getting things setup so it didn't go on cold. I didn't spritz to help pull smoke and I didn't throw on any wood chunks. The more I think about it I really wonder what in the hell I was thinking
Thursday Night
Wife: I promised everyone at work you were going to make pulled pork for Friday:
me: ok I have butts I can thaw out for next week.
wife: oh I meant tomorrrow
me: 😡😡😡😰
off to store to Buy fresh butts
10:30pm salt and seasoned with Memphis dust ( was not waking up early to dust)
2:30am pellet smoker on
3:00am butt goes on
11:15 internal temp at 204
wrapped and put in cooler
12:15pm pulled at her office.
8lbs butt cooked in 8 hours, it was not as tender as when cooked slow for 12 hours but still a fine butt cooked quickly.
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