Butts and Beans

[chudzikb]

Not happening on my wife's watch. She wants as much fat gone as is humanly possible. No getting around that process.

[Dr ROK]

Dew, Here's a link to using the paddle instead of the dough hook with chicken. Haven't tried the paddle with butts.

http://www.tastingtable.com/entry_detail/national/17728/A_Quick_and_Easy_Hack_for_Shredding_Chicken_in_a_Stand_Mixer.htm

[Dewesq55]

I'll have to try out next butt or picnic.

[Dr ROK]

Works pretty slick.

[Dewesq55]

I've never heard of using the dough hook on the KA stand mixer to pull pork butt. That sounds interesting.

[Dr ROK]

Here are the steps and results of this weekends cook.

Friday night I rubbed the Chunks of Butts (COBs) with MMD (w/salt). Wrapped in plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator at 10 PM.

I put the COBs and beans in the cookshack smoker at 2:00 AM Sunday morning at 225 F. Used 3 oz of hickory and 4 Kingsford blue briquetes.

Continued smoking the COBs until 4:30 PM Sunday afternoon. I did not wrap the meat during the smoke, since I didn't want to compromise the bark. The smaller COB with the bone had the Maverick probe in it and it only registered at 182 F, but I needed to get the food to a friends house, so I pulled it out, threw it in the stand mixer with dough hook and it shredded beautifully. Fall apart tender and really moist. Interestingly, the smaller and thinner COB was not quite as easy to shred as the larger COB. Nothing major, but did think it would have been the easier one to shred. I didn't take the time to check the temp in that COB since it partially fell apart when I pulled it out of the smoker and I was in a hurry, but it must have been a bit warmer than the smaller COB and therefore shredded easier. Didn't even add any basting sauce after shredding because it was so moist.

So what I think I learned from this cook was that adding the beans added a couple hours to what it normally takes me to cook a butt. This was the first time I'd cut a butt into two pieces so that was a new variable in the process that may have impacted the time too, but I'd think that would have helped things go quicker rather than longer. I'm sure wrapping would speed the cook time, but I'm hesitant to do so since I'm such a bark lover. Maybe next time I'll wrap one half and leave the other one bare to see if wrapped bark is something I'm willing to accept in order to speed things up when needed. A few pics are posted below.

Here are the two hunks of butt after "rub brining" about 16 hours.



Butts and beans in smoker with probes.



The two pieces at the end of the cook.



And this is what it looked like when I shredded it into smaller chunks before hitting it with the dough hook.

[chudzikb]

I never even thought about cutting them into more than one piece? Might have to try that method next time, I am sure it would quicken the process. Mine from last night is currently hung up around 196, has been wrapped since 150, not sure what is going on, but, not happy about it all...

[Dr ROK]

This will be the first time I've cut a butt into two pieces. Here's the two hunks before the rub. I'm using MMD w/ salt (had saved an earlier version of the recipe, so using it up till gone and then I'll start dry brining instead of "rub brining") and leaving in the fridge till tomorrow night. Will start the smoke process then. The hunk on the right has the bone in it so I was planning on monitoring that piece with the remote probe. It's also the thinner of the two hunks. I'm assuming it will be done first and then I'll transfer the probe to the other piece at that time. Any suggestions to do it differently?

p

[Huskee]

Yeah I always wrap my butts shortly into the stall, and I don't cook chunks larger than ~4 lbs. I see no reason to do larger chunks and spend more time and energy/fuel doing so.

[chudzikb]

I am not arguing with your thinking, just saying what MY constraints are, wish I could get away with doing it your way. My wife is pretty savvy.

[Dr ROK]

Chud, the way I look at it, the amount of fat you'd get in a serving or two of beans wouldn't be much more than eating a 80/20 burger. The flavor the fat brings to the party is well worth it to me. This is an occasional indulgence that I find well worth it. My motto is everything in moderation, including moderation

[chudzikb]

Use them when reheating the pork, once cool it becomes a gel, put a little over and it melts over the pork and becomes a juice on the bottom of whatever you are using to reheat. It just works. Can not be bad in beans either, but, would want to take the fat out before putting in the beans. I do still live with my health conscious wife, would not get away with that one! She can smell fat at 50 yards!

[Dewesq55]

What do you do with the juices?

[Dr ROK]

That's about the same time frame (12 - 15 hrs) I get on my cookshack, but I don't wrap.

[chudzikb]

24 hours? Holy smokes, pun intended. I usually run around 15 +/- an hour or two with a pork butt that size at 225 degrees. I remove and wrap at 150 internal temp. Add some sauce (barbecue/apple juice/minced garlic) and take it to the magical 203. Depending upon how competent I am at wrapping, the time can move up or down. The juices recovered from the wrap are simply amazing when it comes to prepping the final product. Remove the fat with one of those fat separators or just cool in a bowl and remove from the top. The juices are pure gold. Did I mention that the juices are great?

Cookshack SM45, previously a cheap masterbuilt...