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PICS - Very Low & Slow Butt

M mrt 2Where there's smoke, there's beer.
"Very Low and Slow Butt"

Ingredients:

1 - 8 lb. pork butt, wet aged 14 days after purchase. Slaughter date unknown
Brine - 12 oz. by weight non iodized salt, 8 oz molasses or ¾ cup
(Sal. 70% @ 60° pH 5.4)
Rub - seasoned salt, paprika and brown sugar to taste
Reservoir – ½ cup apple juice and ½ cup Aloha Shoyu soy sauce
Smoker – Cookshack Amerique 66
Wood – 4 oz. hickory chunks.

Procedure:

Removed butt from packaging and rinsed well under cold water and patted dry.
Injected with as much brine as it would easily hold. Trussed with butcher twine and brined for 12 hours
Patted dry again then applied as much rub as it would hold. Allowed it to set for one half hour, and then applied more rub. Placed in smoker on upper 1/3 rack with a drip pan under roast on next lower shelf. Inserted remote thermometer and set reservoir on smoker box and closed door. Set the temperature to 200°, and started smoke.

During the long smoke the temperature swing was monitored. The temperature swings ranged from 208° - 193° throughout the entire smoke resulting in a 15° swing.
The door was opened at the 18 hour point to verify the temperature reading. The temperature was verified and the juices flowed when thermometer was removed. No mop was applied at any time.

Did the reservoir add flavor?
Not dramatically but I would think there was a layer of flavor in there somewhere.

Conclusions:

Start weight – 7.95 lbs.
Finish weight of usable meat – 4 lb 4 oz.
Weight loss – 43%
Cooking time – 45 hours @ 200°
Finish temperatures ranged from – 175° near bone to 180°
Color - Darker than normal
Bark – Very dark to black, almost crunchy
Pull ability – East to pull, bone pulled clean
Moisture – Dryer than normal except near bone where it was moist
Flavor – A full richer flavor throughout the entire piece without being complex
The altitude of 2300 ft. probably added a few hours to this cook.

Pros:
Exceptionally good flavor
Although a vinegar and mustard finishing sauce was available, no finishing sauce was needed
It was a fun experiment

Cons:
Long cook time
Dryer than normal

Will I do it again?
Definitely yes, although for special occasions only

Lessons learned:
I believe I overshot the prime time to remove the roast. Next time I will start checking for doneness at the 165° range which would have been around the 24 hour area in this case. I also learned that there is a time and temperature correlation to the meat pulling easily; I don’t know what it is though. Will take more tests to try and figure that one out.

Questions:
I can’t figure why it took so long to come to temp.








For more information on aging pork.

http://www.thepigsite.com/arti...pact-on-meat-quality

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20416685
Last edited {1}
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M maxqMember
quote:
Originally posted by Pags:
At the lower 200* temp, do you think the drip pan blocked some of the direct heat adding to your cooking time? I never use the drip pan inside the smoker, just under it.


I've used an "under the butt" foil pan with an inch of water, both on the FEC100 and the Amerique. Main reason: I'll strain the Jus, remove fat and add some Jus to my finishing sauce. Can't say the water pan slowed the cook time.

IMHO the 200 o extended the lenght. I cook at 230-236 and find an 8-9# bone-in butt will finish 11-12 hrs.
M mrt 2Where there's smoke, there's beer.
Pags, I also was wondering if the drip pan may have slowed the cooking time by blocking some air circulation, although it doesn’t seem to hinder the cooking time at higher temps. My thoughts of using the drip pan are to temporarily collect the moisture from the roast to be evaporated in the later stages, while the moisture in the reservoir is evaporating very early, it assists in laying down flavor and smoke in the very early stage of the cook. The liquid in the reservoir is gone within the first hour. I don’t always use a drip pan when cooking butts at the higher temps, but when used; I like Max use some of the collected liquid for Jus and add after pulling.

Smokin, I brined this one for 12 hours after injecting and trussing. Although his rub recipe was not used, it was actually Alton Browns butt brine recipe.

I use a precision hydrometer to read the salinity of my brines and a Hanna instruments pH meter to read the pH. The reason I do this is to make accurate adjustments if needed and for consistency. It is especially helpful if using different brands or types of salt. Over kill? Sure, but keeping notes on the different brines helps keep the flavor consistent in everything I brine, meat, fish, poultry or vegetables.


Max, I had read on this forum that a Michelin chef from Paris cooked his beef roast at the finishing temp and thought I would give it a try as I had the time. It’s my intention to give a Baron Beef roast I try in the near future. My plan is to smoke it at 140° and bring it to medium rare. Your thoughts?
Last edited by mrt 2
D dlsMember
Interesting experiment, Mr. T. Nice write up and report also. I wish I kept as comprehensive notes as you do. Maybe that's why I feel like most of my cooks are experiments.

Question - Other than the reduced smoker temp, was anything else new in the experiment, or was everything else your normal procedure?

In thinking about it, I can see where the extended cooking time would concentrate and deepen the flavor, as well as the accompanying minor amount of dryness you mention. The extended time probably also contributed to the butt being easily "pullable" at a finish temp that might have some of us reaching for a knife.

What I can't get my arms around is that, cooking at 200°, it took 45 hours to get to 175° to 180°. A cooker temp of 225° seems to be a pretty common temp many use for butts, and many cooks estimate 1.5 to 2 hours to reach a finish IT of 195° to 200°. Using the outside of that range, your 8 lb. butt would have been done in around 16 hours. Your cooker temp was a mere 11% lower, and after a period of time nearly 3 times longer, you're still a bit below the target finish temp. Obviously, there's no linear correlation here. It's pretty baffling to me, but maybe a more experienced chef out there can provide some insight.

In any event, the pics show some pretty good looking meat (and bark), and it sounds like you enjoyed it. That's all that counts.

Thanks for the report.
T tomMember
Obviously,butts and linear don't go together.

I always stress that the 1.5 to 2 hr/lb cook temp is dealing with the 8-10 lb butt.

Think how underdone/unpullable a 1/4 in slice across a 10 lb butt would be, if fried at 350* for one min on each side.

The exterior layer,after awhile, is insulating the core of the butt.I don't figure flavor is being intensified,as we may only be "laying on" smoke to the exterior-which could give that bitter creosote taste.

There is a point of deminishing returns,after we reach some peak of flavor,moisture,and mouth feel.

I suppose that as a scientific experiment,just so we can make comparisons-to a "standard",which may not be repeatable itself,it could hold some interest.

I guess,as an old country cook,I have done enough-good ,and bad,that now I just try to get them done well.LOL

Just my $0.02

Enjoy and let us know what you figure out.
M maxqMember
quote:
Max, I had read on this forum that a Michelin chef from Paris cooked his beef roast at the finishing temp and thought I would give it a try as I had the time. It’s my intention to give a Baron Beef roast I try in the near future. My plan is to smoke it at 140° and bring it to medium rare. Your thoughts?


Time not being a factor, certainly the theory holds water, and is the underlying principle of Sous Vide.

Never having attempted this approach before, I can't give you a definitive opinion other than to say, the end result probably reflects a flavor in it's truest sense of the protein itself. On the other hand (and I'm guessing at this) you might lose the "umami" of bark, crust that occurs due to caramelization. A large cut of beef, such as a baron, may provide caramelization due to sheer time exposed to finish temp heat.

I'd certainly like to hear your thought on the finished Baron of beef.
M mrt 2Where there's smoke, there's beer.
After going through my notes I believe I may have discovered a helpful tool. When cooking butt’s at the higher temps, I normally look for the 20 - 30° temperature jumps after the stall. In this experiment, the jump happened, but at a lesser degree and I missed it. There was an 11° jump between the 24 and 36 hours when it then went into another stall. It’s my belief that at this time(after the jump)all the fat and connective tissue was dissolved and this would have been the time to remove the butt from the smoker.

Note: Other than the bone, there was absolutely no waste when pulled.


"Question - Other than the reduced smoker temp, was anything else new in the experiment, or was everything else your normal procedure?"

dls, Normal procedure? Don’t know if I know the definition to that. In this case I simply threw almost everything in the pot except the temperature in order to come up with a base line to work from. The thought of salt crusting came up also, but I didn’t want to get carried away on this particular cut of meat. LOL


"The exterior layer,after awhile, is insulating the core of the butt.I don't figure flavor is being intensified,as we may only be "laying on" smoke to the exterior-which could give that bitter creosote taste."

Tom, There was absolutely no creosote taste here. In fact after the 45 hour smoke, the wood chunks were only charred probably due to the low temp and that the chunks were placed as not to touch each other.


"I'd certainly like to hear your thought on the finished Baron of beef."

Max Q, Thanks for your input. I will definitely keep you up to date on the procedures and results with the Baron. We are looking forward to some tasty sliced beef.

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