AKA: You have to love my butt. Pork Butt that is.

 Your going to have to forgive me on this one. If you are interested in smoking meats, then read on, if you aren’t, then just ignore this post. I was just so proud of how well this dish turned out that I had to post about it.

You see, I’m a big fan of grilling. There just isn’t much that compares to some exquisitely grilled food, seared to perfection. I’m not just talking about meats, I love to grill vegetables, fruits, and breads too.

On Saturday, my wife asked me to smoke a pork butt, also called a boston butt or pork shoulder roast. To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t really in the mood, but she had already prepped it, and it really isn’t that much work.

The night before she had put a dry rub on the meat, and placed it in the fridge overnight. Technically, since the rub was left on the meat for so long, it’s considered “curing” the meat.

So Saturday about 7PM I started my smoker up, tossed some chunks of hickory on it,  and put the butt on. Later on that night, around 10 or so, I threw some more hickory chunks on the fire, and went to bed.

In the morning, about 7:00 AM, I fired the smoker back up, it had gone out during the night, and put some more hickory on it, refilled the drip pan with water, and started smoking again.

The smoker sat right around 250 degrees while it was lit, although during the night it had gone much lower, down to about 100. I took the meat off at 2PM, so all together it smoked for about 19 hours.

Now, you would think that being cooked for this long would make the meat really dry, but a port butt has so much fat in it, that when it melts the meat is just continually basted. There is this pad of fat on one side of the meat, and I usually place that side pointing up, so that it runs over the meat as it melts.

If you would like to see a full sized version of these pictures, just click on them. On the first picture, you can see the bone from the pork butt, which I pulled out with my fingers, sitting next to the meat. The second picture highlights the juiciness of the meat. Sections of meat that are red are not raw, they are part of the “Smoke Ring”, which indicates how far into the meat the smoke penetrated.

A lot of people suggest “mopping” the meat periodically with a “mop sauce”, and as long I’m not feeling too lazy, I’ll do it. I didn’t this time though. A mop sauce is basically just a watery sauce that keeps the meat moist. In my experience, the mop sauce is usually vinegar based.

My only regret is that I didn’t make the mustard barbecue sauce that normally goes with this. I ended up buying some, and I just wasn’t really happy with it.

Steven Raichlen got me started smoking meats, thanks to his book, “How to Grill: The Complete Illustrated Book of Barbecue Techniques“. Thanks Steven! I highly suggest it for anyone who would like to learn some new grilling techniques. I own the book, and the majority of my tried and true recipes come from it.

Posted in barbecue, Grilling, smoking meats 5 Comments »