Pork Butt

Pork butt is fairly straightforward to cook except for the cooking time.  If you read the post on brisket you will understand "the stall."  This is a period of time when either evaporation or rendering of fat causes the temperature to hold still rather than raise.  This stall seems to completely depend on fat content.  Therefore, as with brisket, you should make sure that you add an extra 4-5 hours to your estimated cook time to account for the stall.

I do not brine my pork butt.  However, I do inject mine with apple juice.  I also use apple wood chunks for smoke.  Just soak the wood chunks in water for a couple hours prior to adding to the coals.


Below is a picture of the 8 pound pork butt I cooked last night.  This is the side without the fat cap.

First, cut the fat cap from the butt.  Do not try to remove the whole fat cap because this will help keep the butt from drying out and will render out to add juicy goodness to the butt.  Just leave about 1/8 inch of the fat cap on the butt.  Below are pictures of the butt both before and after the fat cap was cut off.

Then inject the butt with apple juice.  I usually inject about 1 cup of apple juice.  You can also add truffle powder, garlic powder, and onion powder to the injection.

Then coat the butt with yellow mustard as a binding agent to hold the rub.  There is no need to worry about the taste of the mustard.  The mustard will cook off leaving no taste.

Thoroughly coat the butt with rub until you can't see or can barely see the yellow mustard.  I provided a picture below.  Unlike poultry where you will want to use the rub fairly sparingly, for pork butt's you want to coat the butt liberally with rub.

Pork Dry Rub Ingredients

     1/2 cup kosher salt

     1/2 cup ground black pepper

     1/2 cup chili powder

     1/2 cup brown sugar

     1/2 cup paprika

     1/2 cup granulated garlic

     1 tablespoon dry mustard

     2 tablespoons cayenne pepper

Preheat the smoker to 225-235 degrees Fahrenheit.  

Smoke the butt for roughly 1.5 hours per pound.  Remove once the internal temperature is between 200-205 degrees and you can stick a fork in the meat and easily twist the fork.  Do not worry about the dark bark on the outside of the pork butt.  This will provide the smoky flavor once you have shredded your pork butt.

An 8 pound butt will take about 12 hours to cook and a 10 pound butt will take about 15 hours, but make sure to leave yourself some extra time (about 4 hours) for the stall.  The last thing you want is to have to ramp the temperature to finish when your guests arrive.  This will ruin your butt. 

Also, a pork butt will be fine if you finish early.  A butt can sit for 4-5 hours in an insulated container while still maintaining its temperature with no repercussions.  Simply double shred the butt until you are ready to serve.  Add the wrapped butt to a small cooler and cover with a towel.  If you need to sit for longer than 4-5 hours simply preheat your oven to 225 degrees and slowly bring the butt back up to temperature prior to serving.

Finally shred the butt with bear claws and toss with barbecue sauce if you would like.

The pork should be extra juicy and tender with a nice pink smoke ring around the inside.  Now is the time to add BBQ sauce if you wish.  However, many people enjoy unadulterated pork butt, so if you do decide to add BBQ sauce, I recommend only saucing half your pork butt.


Enjoy.