Shoulder or Butt Which Cut is Best For Pulled Pork? My Conclusion

tom c · Dec 10, 2011

Being that I'm from Missouri I needed to see for myself.

roller · Dec 10, 2011

SmokinAl · Dec 10, 2011

Good start Tom. I think you'll find you prefer the butt.

frosty · Dec 10, 2011

What Al said!

tom c · Dec 10, 2011

Looking good @ 2 hours.

tom c · Dec 10, 2011

@ 3 hours

Lunch

SmokinAl · Dec 10, 2011

Lunch looks good! It's nice that both pieces of meat are cooking at the same speed. I love it when that happens.

raptor700 · Dec 10, 2011

Looking good Tom

I prefer the butt for pulled pork also.

tom c · Dec 10, 2011

SmokinAl said:
It's nice that both pieces of meat are cooking at the same speed. I love it when that happens.

They are staying within 2 degrees so far.

@ 6 hours 150.

mballi3011 · Dec 10, 2011

I pefer the butts but I have smoked a butt load of shoulders too.

tom c · Dec 10, 2011

@ 7 hours IT156

tom c · Dec 10, 2011

@9 hours IT 165

raptor700 · Dec 10, 2011

Interesting to see how they do when they hit the stall

Looking good

ellymae · Dec 10, 2011

We like shoulders - used to cut the skin off, now we leave it on and put it in the Egg skin down - .

tom c · Dec 10, 2011

Both are in the cooler, they hit 200 within 20 mins of each other.

tom c · Dec 11, 2011

My conclusions are they are both delicious.

They both took the almost same time to cook, both were just over 8 pounds, the IT stay within 2 degrees until I foiled then. I foiled the shoulder first and it finished 20 mins faster.

After pulling and removing the remaining fat they were both moist and tender.

Shoulder, the meat is leaner, with multiple bones with cartilage.

Butt, heavily fat marbled, with one bone. Needed to spend more time removing extra fat when pulling.

If I was doing a blind taste test I couldn't tell the difference.

Shoulder

Butt

Shoulder

Butt

Shoulder

Butt

Without Sauce

With Sauce

owlcreeksmoker4 · Dec 11, 2011

both look delicious

tom c · Dec 12, 2011

Tom C said:
Shoulder, the meat is leaner,

Butt, heavily fat marbled,

Those are the only real different there is. Because the shoulder is leaner if you try to cook it fast you are going dry it out. The butt because it is heavily fat marbled is very forgiving. I have cook them with high heat and have them cook in 4 hour for slicing and low and slow for 12 hour for pulling either way they are both delicious.

bigcase · Dec 12, 2011

That is some great looking pp, nice work and excellent experiment.

scarbelly · Dec 12, 2011

I like them both and you just proved that there is no a lot of difference. I do like the butt having less bones to deal with but both mighty tasty.

Shoulder or Butt Which Cut is Best For Pulled Pork? My Conclusion

Pork Shoulder or Butt Which Cut is Best For Pulled Pork?

Shoulder

Butt

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