Pork Butts, Bone In

[Rapier]

Bought 40 pounds of fresh pork butts for a community cook out. Supposed to have 20 folks. I figured we might have more and we did have more.

Washed the vacuum packed butts after opening and draining, dried them well with paper towels. Then applied a 3-2-1 dry rub (3 black pepper, 2 garlic powder, 1 Cajun seasoning) in a big shaker, well covered. Then a heavy coat of Cactus Dust, made by Everglades Seasoning on the top fat layer.

Placed on the second and third layer racks in a Cook Shack electric smoker with 3-5 oz of hickory wood at 220 degrees for 14 hours.

The entire community was well impressed with the pulled and chopped Memphis style prep. Pulling, then chopping, then mixing the outside and inside meat, creates a nice smoked flavor.

One thing about the wood, strip all of the bark off before putting it in the smoker, makes for a sweet smoke, without any bitter from the bark.

Made a batch of Cook Shack Bar B Q sauce, their spices are two tablespoons, rest is wet ingredients on their label.

[MaryB]

Pulled pork is one of the most forgiving things to cook on a smoker. Why I recommend newbies start with it! Once they get that down move on to ribs, brisket(most difficult to cook right, tender but not falling apart).

I need to cook one up then vac bag it for winter eats!

[dale2242]

Some folks may flame me for brining and injecting my pork butts with apple juice brine.
I brine them for 24 hrs and inject them with it as well. Everyone that has eaten my pulled pork has loved it.
I dry the meat and apply a liberal amount of some sweeter rub, my favorite being Grub Rub.
I smoke mine in a pellet grill for 3hrs at 225*.
It is then placed in an aluminum pan with a 1/2 in of the brine.
Smoke until the probe says it is 204-206*.
Like rapier says, 12-14 hrs.

[Good Cheer]

Rapier, sounds great.

About bark; it's trees' protective armor, often with compounds built into it to not taste good so us two-leggers don't like the flavor either.

[MT Gianni]

Probably location but pork butts are hard to find here. I mostly get shoulders, butts get cured for ham.

[MaryB]

pork butt is the shoulder LOL

[Silvercreek Farmer]

Cooking 2 full shoulders (front quarters) and a fresh ham, all homegrown, probably 75 lbs worth, for the family reunion this weekend. I cook them in a cinder block pit with an offset fire box. 24 hours of low and slow with cherry in the firebox. Makes for some fine eating!

[KenH]

I'm sure I'm the cheapskate here, but I sorta like pork shoulders best anyway - they got enough fat to be really juicy. They call the shoulder cut "Boston Butt" around here.

[Fishman]

205 internal is the ticket as already mentioned. Once you get that, everything else just makes it even better. hard to mess up and pretty cheap, which suits me to a T.

[MaryB]

Pork butt(shoulder) also makes really good sausage. I use it for hot italian and breakfast sausage, it has just enough fat to make a juicy sausage but not one over loaded with fat.

[Geezer in NH]

Just did 21 pounds of it. took 5 minutes to debone. 20 to grind, then mixed spices for sweet Italian sausage. vac-packed and frozen in 1 pound paks.