How much/long should I add smoke for Pork butt?

[shaun h]

This will be my first attempt at pulled pork.  Just doing an 8lb by itself.  How much wood should I start off with, and then how often and how much wood should I add from there?

Thanks for all help.

 

[meateater]

What kind of smoker you have would help, then we can help back. 

 

[scarbelly]

I would say that most of the folks here foil at 165 and at that point all you need is heat. If in fact you are going to smoke all the way without foil I would leave the smoke all the way.  Just my .02

 

[shaun h]

I have a WSM 22.5 in.

 

[jirodriguez]

I start with approxl 5-6 chunks of wood burried in my charcoal on my WSM, then starting at approx. 3 hrs. I will add another 2 chunks each hour till I hit an internal temp. of 165° and foil it. The chunks I use are the bag of chunks you buy at Lowes or Home Depot, approx. baseball'ish in size.

But I do like my meat fairly smokey, so keep that in mind.

 

[SmokinAl]

We keep it smoking the whole time.

 

[shaun h]

Thanks guys.  So its not like ribs that can be oversmoked.  I guess because its such a bigger piece of meat?

 

[rbranstner]

As with any type of meat if you are producing proper smoke (thin blue smoke) you will not usually over smoke the meat. Its when you have thick white smoke that you will run into creosote and your meat will taste awful and bitter.

 

[ecto1]

With pork butts I am not an internal temp guy before I foil.  Now this is just my opinion and there are lots of ways to do this.  I like to let my butts sit in smoke for 6 hours before I foil.  When I check the temp at 6 hours they tend to vary from 165 to 180 depending on the butt.  I do this because i read once that a large piece of meat generally will not take on much more smoke flavor after six hours.  I don't know if that is even true but six hours unfoiled seems to give me the amount of bark me and my family like so that is what we do.  The moral of the story is i don't think there is one true right answer just guidelines that you use to find a method you are confertable with.

 

[michael ark]

Till it's done the whole time.

 

[shaun h]

Thanks guys this has been real helpful.  I will try and do some pics and get some critique back on how I did.  This is a great site and I have learned a lot.