Boston Butt

megt123 · Jun 10, 2013

OK I did it. A 10.5lb Boston Butt. I put a nice rub on it and refrigerated it from 9PM until 8 AM the next morning. I am still fine tuning my UDS so the cook was between 350-375 and for about one hour it spiked to 400 degrees. It took a total of 61/2 hours. Every two hours I put on 3 parts Apple juice and 1 part Captain Morgans spiced rum on the butt. I did not foil it after it reached 165 like some. When I went to pull it almost fell through my hands. After an hour of letting it set, I pulled the bone with no effort out of the meat. Here are some Q pics

Pork butt

megt123
Jun 10, 2013

Pork butt2

megt123
Jun 10, 2013

Pork butt3

megt123
Jun 10, 2013

Pork butt4

megt123
Jun 10, 2013

bill foster · Jun 10, 2013

Nice job Gary!

sqwib · Jun 10, 2013

smokerpaul said:
i find that when i brine meat i end up with less brine liquid than i started with so i can only assume that it has penetrated the meat . also i have seen protein boils and streaks running on the outside of my meat from sites of marinade injection and that has continued for quite a while into the cook so that leads me to believe that there is no point in injecting as the hole left never can and never will seal up

to be honest there are probably more opinions on this than i have had hot dinners so as long as you are happy with your finished product then you have done it the right way. it is only when you are not happy you look at changing things . at this moment i am happy with my pulled pork method.very juicy and perfect texture for me i just need to zero in on the right rub for my taste (i am nearly there)

I just want to make sure my post wasn't taken the wrong way.

I was replying specifically to this statement

sticking a needle in the meat all over means you have lots of holes for the juice to run back out of making it a drier meat in the end.

Are you saying the marinade runs back out of the hole, or the meat loses its juices from being pierced?

My point was that you can poke it like a crazy man, with say something like a thermapen but it won't leak like bad plumbing. My reference was not that of Injecting.

My personal preference is a brine is not needed neither is an injection, I'm not saying it wont work, and I agree whatever works for you works.

smokerpaul · Jun 11, 2013

i was refering to meat and marinade juices running out of injection sites and i think it ends up a drier finished product,to be honest i just try to leave the meat intact as much as possible not even a fork to turn the joints of meat over i use probes that stays in the meat all through the cook and i have 5 probes and thermometers to use at any one time so i only check with a thermopen if i am cooking more than that but i usually probe the larger items and when they are nearing temp i check the smaller ones basically this is the method which works well for me

1, brine for 24 hours and rub 1 hour before smoking

2,smoke at 220-250f

3,wrap in foil at 145-150f internal temperature(pre stall temp)

4,continue to cook in the foil until internal temperature reaches 200f

5,wrap with more foil and wrap in old towels and rest it in a cool box for at least 1 hour but 2 hours are better

this works well for me every time i never cook to a time i cook only using temperatures, it takes as long as it takes

sqwib · Jun 11, 2013

smokerpaul said:
i was refering to meat and marinade juices running out of injection sites and i think it ends up a drier finished product,to be honest i just try to leave the meat intact as much as possible not even a fork to turn the joints of meat over i use probes that stays in the meat all through the cook and i have 5 probes and thermometers to use at any one time so i only check with a thermopen if i am cooking more than that but i usually probe the larger items and when they are nearing temp i check the smaller ones basically this is the method which works well for me

1, brine for 24 hours and rub 1 hour before smoking

2,smoke at 220-250f

3,wrap in foil at 145-150f internal temperature(pre stall temp)

4,continue to cook in the foil until internal temperature reaches 200f

5,wrap with more foil and wrap in old towels and rest it in a cool box for at least 1 hour but 2 hours are better

this works well for me every time i never cook to a time i cook only using temperatures, it takes as long as it takes

Smokerpaul I just wanted to assure you that the meat will not be drier from a few pokes.

I have a 48 blade jaccard that I will pierce steak about 30 times per side, thats 2,880 holes in a small piece of meat.

The end result is never dry.

zpv-2425_1z.jpg

sqwib
Jun 11, 2013

20120821031.JPG

sqwib
Jun 11, 2013

20120821047.JPG

sqwib
Jun 11, 2013

I don't want to

just trying to help a fellow smoker.

Continue to do whatever works for you, after all, we all have our own methods.

And I apologize for getting off topic

Smoke on Brother!

smokerpaul · Jun 11, 2013

no problem sqwib

i was talking about butts ,picnics,and brisket and in general all slow cooked large joints of meat,i just try to end up with a finished product with as much moisture retained as possible.i fully agree with using a tenderiser for steaks, as a steak at times may not have been matured enough to be naturally tender (hung for 21-28 days) and the 1-2 mins per side on an inch thick steak would hardly dry it out.

and those steaks in the pics sure look tasty

and megt123 the butt sure looks great but i am wondering why was the temperature so high for you cook i only cook pork butt between 220-250f and in my uds i find it almost impossible to get up to those sort of temps i think i have only managed to get to 320f with all airways fully open

megt123 · Jun 18, 2013

I don't know how. It just climbs sometimes and when I get to high I open the lid.After that smoke I did a 10 pound bottom round roast, a picnic and four small chickens for my birthday party. I put out the food (salads bread veggie trays etc) at 12PM and ALL of the BBQ was gone by 3'oclock. Everyone raved about the meat.I am going to make another UDS and change some things, but for a first timer building a UDS it works pretty good.

smokerpaul · Jun 18, 2013

hi megt123

i have noticed that you are using weber style vents at the bottom of you uds these vents are designed to be used on a flat surface or or they are shaped to fit on a dome lid not on a curved side of your drum .i believe that they are not a good enough seal to control your temps,if you cannot restrict the air you will never control your smoker,and to be more cost effective you must be able to shut off all the air going into the bottom as this is the only way you will be able to shut down your smoker and save any un burnt charcoal, if air can get in the smoker the charcoal will keep burning until it has all gone, have a look at some other builds that people have done on here and maybe you will be able to have a rethink and adapt your uds so that you will get better control of it, also when you have got it controlled try to resist lifting the lid as much as possible because the longer it is open the hotter the coals will get and the temperatures will spike higher when you close the lid

i too built my own uds and it is not the same as it was when i first built it i had tall air pipes up the side of my drum but i found they restricted the air too much and i could not get the temps high enough. before i built it i researched for quite a while as most of the materials used in the builds in the U.S are not easily available here in england so i had to adapt the build to suit what i could get here

i hope this helps

paul

chef willie · Jun 18, 2013

Nice job on the butt...glad it turned out 'fall apart tender'. Something to be said for the 'fast & furious' method I guess, 6.5 hours for a 10.5 butt is pretty quick. I was watching a Pit Masters episode and Myron Mixon was commenting how he does fast & furious vs the low & slow method. He cracks me up sometimes....squirting lighter fluid everywhere...lol. Just goes to show you....more than one way to smoke a butt

redwood carlos · Jun 18, 2013

Chef Willie said:
Nice job on the butt...glad it turned out 'fall apart tender'. Something to be said for the 'fast & furious' method I guess, 6.5 hours for a 10.5 butt is pretty quick. I was watching a Pit Masters episode and Myron Mixon was commenting how he does fast & furious vs the low & slow method. He cracks me up sometimes....squirting lighter fluid everywhere...lol. Just goes to show you....more than one way to smoke a butt

I saw that one too. Made me want to try one out. Maybe this weekend...

megt123 · Jun 18, 2013

smokerpaul said:
hi megt123

i have noticed that you are using weber style vents at the bottom of you uds these vents are designed to be used on a flat surface or or they are shaped to fit on a dome lid not on a curved side of your drum .i believe that they are not a good enough seal to control your temps,if you cannot restrict the air you will never control your smoker,and to be more cost effective you must be able to shut off all the air going into the bottom as this is the only way you will be able to shut down your smoker and save any un burnt charcoal, if air can get in the smoker the charcoal will keep burning until it has all gone, have a look at some other builds that people have done on here and maybe you will be able to have a rethink and adapt your uds so that you will get better control of it, also when you have got it controlled try to resist lifting the lid as much as possible because the longer it is open the hotter the coals will get and the temperatures will spike higher when you close the lid

i too built my own uds and it is not the same as it was when i first built it i had tall air pipes up the side of my drum but i found they restricted the air too much and i could not get the temps high enough. before i built it i researched for quite a while as most of the materials used in the builds in the U.S are not easily available here in england so i had to adapt the build to suit what i could get here

i hope this helps

paul

You are correct about the vents. I had seen them on Amazon and thought I would try them. I did have to flatten them out, but they were cheap. I was just looking for a way to make an old barrell I had laying around into a UDS. With 4 coats of high heat paint, ss screws, one Weber rack a rib rack to hold my fire basket. the lid and a handle I only have about $120 into this thing minus labor time. I found a place here to get good drums w/lids, so my next one should be better.

megt123 · Jun 18, 2013

Chef Willie said:
Nice job on the butt...glad it turned out 'fall apart tender'. Something to be said for the 'fast & furious' method I guess, 6.5 hours for a 10.5 butt is pretty quick. I was watching a Pit Masters episode and Myron Mixon was commenting how he does fast & furious vs the low & slow method. He cracks me up sometimes....squirting lighter fluid everywhere...lol. Just goes to show you....more than one way to smoke a butt

Yeah and when Johnny Trig saw that he commented on how he never uses lighter fluid. Well who has won more competitions? I don't use fluid either. I use the time it takes to get the chimney going to do other things. Multitask.

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