Trim patches of surface fat down to the lean meat. If you find pockets of fat where several muscles converge, just trim out whatever fat seems reasonable. This photo shows the two pork butts after removing the fat caps, false caps, and most external fat.
There comes a point of diminishing returns when trimming fat from a pork butt. When trimming a large cut of meat like a pork butt, you may stumble across things like big veins, bloody spots, or even an occasional lymph node sort of a cream-colored or light-brown circular mass extending an inch or more down into the meat, usually removed at the processing plant but sometimes missed.
Just trim away these things if you find them. Remember, this hunk of meat used to be part of an animal, and these things are normal. If your boneless pork butt seems kind of floppy and you want it to have a more compact shape, tie it in several locations with kitchen twine. Place the roast with the narrow end facing you. Cut a length of kitchen twine, loop it around the roast, bringing the two ends to the top of the roast.
Pull snug and tie with whatever kind of knot you like, then repeat in several locations. After trimming a pork butt, apply a generous amount of dry rub to the meat and cook immediately, or apply the rub, wrap the meat in plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight. The rub does not penetrate the meat deeply during refrigeration, but some of the salt enters the meat to season it and the rub forms a moist layer that adheres well during cooking.
You can also apply a bit more rub right before putting the meat in the cooker. The mustard helps the rub stick to the meat, and oddly enough, the meat does not taste like mustard after cooking. Brown articles contain popular rub recipes for pork butt. There are two schools of thought on this point. One school holds that you should allow a pork butt to sit at room temperature for up to two hours before cooking.
This helps to minimize the difference in temperature between the meat and the cooker. Why is this important? Some barbecue experts say that cold meat can be fouled by creosote that results from a poorly managed fire, especially in wood-burning cookers.
The result is bitter tasting meat. And of course, the WSM is charcoal-fired, not wood-fired. Lately, my habit has been to take the pork butt from the refrigerator and place it directly in the cooker.
Frankly, I think meat temperature is more of an issue with grilled meats that cook quickly over high heat than it is for large cuts like pork butt that barbecue for hours or more. In his book On Food And Cooking , author Harold McGee says that meat is composed of three tissue types: muscle fiber, connective tissue, and fat. Connective tissue consists of the proteins collagen, elastin, and reticulin.
Pork butt has an abundance of connective tissue, as do most muscles that work very hard. It is this conversion from collagen to gelatin that renders the tough old pork butt into the tender barbecue we enjoy so much.
It needs to be cooked to even higher temps to achieve tenderness. While some moisture will be driven out of the pork butt as it reaches these high internal temps, the gelatin makes up for it and keeps the meat moist. A pork butt consists of seven different muscles that converge at the shoulder, and there is a lot of fat and connective tissue between these muscles.
As a result, you will get different temperature readings between different muscles and between meat and fat or connective tissue. I feel the best way to measure internal temperature is to use an instant-read thermometer to check in several locations and average the results. If you prefer to measure in just a single location, then measure in the thickest part of the meat.
It takes quite a bit of time and heat energy to evaporate that moisture, and the internal meat temp will not move out of the stall until that moisture is evaporated. For example, when cooking two roasts weighing 8 pounds each after trimming, the total cooking time for both roasts should be hours. Remember, this is only an estimate—it may take more or less time, depending on the thickness of the pork butt, the amount of connective tissue that needs to be converted to gelatin, the temperature of the cooker, weather conditions, and the number of times you open the cooker for turning and basting.
While it may not take much more time to cook multiple pork butts that it does to cook just one, it will require more fuel. Make sure to use more charcoal in the cooker when barbecuing multiple pork butts. If you choose to cook a whole pork butt with the fat cap intact, should you cook it fat-side up or fat-side down?
Turning meat over and end-for-end several times during barbecuing helps to promote even cooking. Basting helps keep the meat moist, adds a little flavor to the surface of the meat, and may help promote the formation of a smoke ring. Turning and basting is not as important with pork butt as with other cuts of meat, so you can decide for yourself whether you want to go to the effort.
I will often baste pork butts, but not bother to turn them during cooking. For example, two 8-pound pork butts will take hours to cook, so take the shorter time of 12 hours and divide it in half. The first time to turn and baste the meat is at this halfway point: 6 hours. Baste one side of the pork butt, then turn it over and end-for-end and baste the other side.
You can baste with any flavorful liquid you like. Brown article features a recipe for a cider vinegar baste. Now, divide the remaining cooking time in half.
In our example, the next time to turn and baste the meat will be in 3 hours. Repeat this process until about the last hour of cooking, then stop turning and basting. For casual afternoon gatherings, or parties that consist primarily of young children, you can plan on smaller serving sizes. To help you determine how much pork shoulder to buy, use this formula as a guide.
Therefore, you should buy 8 pounds of raw pork shoulder. When you buy pork shoulder, you might find a thin white netting that surrounds the meat like a web.
This material is in place to hold the pork shoulder together as it cooks. Some butchers put the netting in place to mask the fact that the pork shoulder already consists of several smaller pieces.
Even when the cut is sold in one big slab, however, the netting is a common sight. Without it, the meat might fall apart in the smoker. To remove it, just use a pair of kitchen shears or regular scissors to cut through the strings. The task should be easy enough, especially when you take shrinkage into account.
If you need more product, you can always buy two smaller cuts and smoke them at the same time. On their website, they even sell pork shoulder samplers so you can compare the differences between breeds.
Red Wattle: Originally from New Caledonia in the South Pacific, this breed gets its name from its jowly appearance and rusty red color. Prized for its ham and beefy-tasting meat. Duroc: This breed is especially prized for its shoulder meat and its spareribs. Milder tasting than some heritage breeds.
A whole pork shoulder extends from the bottom of the front leg to the top of the shoulder, excluding the trotters feet. Boston butt also known as pork shoulder butt refers to the top of the shoulder, a gorgeous hunk of protein with tender meat and generous marbling with a blade bone running through part of it. If you happen to live in St. Louis, this is the section from which pork steaks also called blade steaks are cut.
Shoulder ham also known as a picnic ham refers to the bottom of the shoulder, including the top of the foreleg. It is not quite as well-marbled as the pork shoulder butt, but responds well to low and slow cooking. How many people do you intend to feed and how would you gauge their appetites big eaters, men, women, children? Will you be serving side dishes with the pork?
Or buns?
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