Frozen Pork Butt

[ecowper]

Thought I’d try that whole cook it from frozen thing. I’ve got a pork butt that I dry brined and put the rub on, then ended up freezing when I didn’t get to cook it the following day. Decided that I’d do that for Independence Day Q. Got the WSM fired up and running about 250F, pulled the pork butt from the freezer and stuck it straight on the WSM. Can’t even put a probe in it yet, it’s frozen that hard. I keep my freezer at 0F, so that pork butt has a lot of cooking to do :-).

You can see the frost on the outside, that’s how cold it is


Look at what putting it on did to my grate temp

[Spinaker]

This is gonna be interesting. I bet you won't find much of a difference. You will have great smoke adhesion from the meat being so cold in the smoke.

[ecowper]

That’s what I’m thinking. If this works the way I want it to, I’m just going to do it this way all the time.

[ecowper]

I’m doing a fast, hot cook too .... intending to run the WSM around 280’ish. Normally, if I put meat on from the fridge at 250, there’s hardly a bump on the way to 275-280. Putting the frozen hunk of meat on there slowed that way down. Took about 10 minutes to get out of that 230’ish plateau.

[ecowper]

Pork butt has been on for almost an hour. Was able to insert the meat probe. Butt’s internal temp is 26F now. WSM is running about 290F, which is just fine for a hot/fast cook.

[ecowper]

Just a reminder why we need to measure temp at the grate with a good thermometer. The WSM bi-metal thermometer says we are at 220F. The actual grate temp according to the Fireboard is 281F

[HouseHomey]

I’m thinking this will be a fast cook. Frozen and all.

[ecowper]

Yep, aiming to be done around 3 PM

[HouseHomey]

I’m not sure there is any science behind it but in my experience... wet brined/mostly thawed and marinated meat cook faster.

[ecowper]

Pork butt is 7 1/2 hours in ... bark looks great, internal temp is 178. Never really had a stall at all, running the WSM at about 275 usually wipes out the stall. Figure I’ve got about 1 1/2, maybe 2 hours, of cooking left. Won’t bother to hold it in a cambro, just rest until it’s cooled down enough to pull. K

[Jfrosty27]

Yum

[Sweaty Paul]

Looks awesome

[BFlynn]

Waiting to see results!!

[Ahumadora]

Glad you tried the ol frozen trick. Saves having a half your fridge taken up while de thawing. Looks great so far. Frozen n hot n fast saves a bunch of time..

[Dadof3Illinois]

Now I wish I would have bribed prior to vac sealing and freezing the ones I got the other day...🙄🙄. This was a very interesting cook...thanks!!

[ecowper]

Interesting, this pork butt ran right through the stall ..... never happened. Temp was good all the way to about 185 and then .... BAM .... stalled. Not horrible, just sat there for about an hour. Finally decided that was enough and pushed the grate temp up to 300F. That took care of the problem. Pulled off the WSM at 199F internal and wrapped for about 30 minutes while everything else was getting prepped.

I can pretty well guarantee that this is how I’m going to be doing pork butt from now on.

[BFlynn]

Looks awesome!
Glad to see a new {at least to me} technique!!

[Parkin]

Looks great, man. Gonna try this next time I get a 2 pack.

[Sweaty Paul]

Looks fabulous

[Steve R.]

Yeah, this has been my go-to method for awhile now, especially if I'm buying a two pack and only need one. Then that frozen one can be cooking on just a moment's notice, and with zero mess to clean up in the kitchen. I pretty much always keep one on standby like that.

[ecowper]

What I really like is that I didn’t have to add all the meat prep to getting ready for a big BBQ. There’s already enough with salads and sauces and such.

[Steve R.]

ecowper, about the only thing I might change going forward is to cut that hunk of meat in half before freezing. Sometimes I just don't need to cook a full 8-10 lbs. Or for those times that I do, more bark is always a good thing.

[ecowper]

Steve R. I was thinking about cutting in half, pulling the bone, and tying. Would give me double the bark!

[Andrrr]

Thanks for sharing your results. Most interesting and I'm thinking this is going to happen here someday

[ecowper]

I had read a couple folks here on the Pit talking about doing this and figured I’d give it a shot. It works great.