De-boned vs bone-in cooking time?

[SherryT]

So I had an 11lb butt in the freezer...thawed it out, removed the bone, roughly halved it, tied it up w/butcher's twine, and smoked both yesterday.

The smaller of the two ( about 4.5-5lbs), took about 7 hours at 230F (avg) to get to 165-ish when I wrapped, took another 1.5 - 2 hours to hit 200F, so about 9.5 hours total.

The other butt (about 5.5-6lbs) was at 165F when I removed the 1st butt from the smoker and took an additional 4 hours unwrapped to get to 201F, so about 13 hours.

I didn't think it would take THAT long to hit temps considering their size and lack of bone...so my question is this...does removing the bone, rolling tightly, and tying it up cause it to take longer to hit temps due to density? Does the bone provide any sort of "conductivity", so to speak?

 

[thirdeye]

Usually de-boning and tying to a consistent shape, will make a roast cook more evenly. The bone does conduct some heat, and those horn muscles that are tucked around the blade bone are always tasty.... but I think your heat differential was due to the wrapping, because wrapping speeds up the cook.

 

[SmokinAl]

Personally I would never smoke a boneless butt.
You loose a lot of flavor & moisture when you take the bone out.
Plus it’s very easy to tell when the butt is done, cause the bone will wiggle right out. But that’s just me & my opinion!
Al

 

[SherryT]

Personally I would never smoke a boneless butt.
You loose a lot of flavor & moisture when you take the bone out.
Plus it’s very easy to tell when the butt is done, cause the bone will wiggle right out. But that’s just me & my opinion!
Al

I figured as much, but as it was a HUGE piece of meat, I figured I could kill two birds with one stone and test wrapped vs unwrapped...going forward, I'll buy 5 - 7 pounders and do a couple at a time.