Smoking pork butt

[Cougar281]

My wife wants to try smoking a pork butt, something I've never done so far. The three main things I have smoked is fillets wings and ribs. And I've used hickory for all of those.

Does anyone have a recommended hardwood to use to smoke it, and if so, why? My usual go-to is Hickory, used with fillets and ribs, but does pork butt warrant something different?

Any other tips/suggestions to smoking pork butt?

 

[gunzby]

My wife wants to try smoking a pork butt, something I've never done so far. The three main things I have smoked is fillets wings and ribs. And I've used hickory for all of those.

Does anyone have a recommended hardwood to use to smoke it, and if so, why? My usual go-to is Hickory, used with fillets and ribs, but does pork butt warrant something different?

Any other tips/suggestions to smoking pork butt?

If you have hickory, I’d go with hickory. I smoked one last week. I have oak and pecan that I’m trying to get rid of.

I smoked the butt using all the dry pecan I had at 225F for two hours. I then bumped it up to 250F with the rest of the dry pecan I had and then switched to oak.

I ran that to around 170F until the fat cap had started to render, wrapped it and cooked at 275F until it hit 203F.

You can do the whole thing with hickory and it’ll take less time, use less wood and taste just as good

 

[indaswamp]

Hickory will work, but the final result will be more of a heavy smoke flavor...not that that is bad, just a function of the long smoke using hickory wood. Best wood IMO for pork butt is either Apple or Cherry wood...they just go so well with pork. Could also use maple as well. My personal preference though is wild cherry...for the flavor, and because I have so much of it.