The Mysterious Pork Butt Gland

Any idea what temp it was taken to? Also, was it a Smokette? Looks great. thx

Good job Smokin...I never realized that there might be that much junk associated with the 'gland'

Yuk!!! You mean I've been eating that!!!!!
I'll be sure to ask the butcher next time.

thanks for the pics......that butt looks good!!! he he he he

Yup folks, you been eating it. Something left out of Pork Butt 101, didn't have any good photos, but now I do.

Next butt I know everyone will be carving them up looking for them.

I can't let the wife see this!!! We'd never again smoke a butt!!! Finished product looks fantastic. I'm hungry!

My wife was like that, she saw it over my shoulder as I posted it, and I told her not to worry, I always take it out.

Her comment, "does everyone know to take it out?"

Of course, I said everyone knows....now

Actually, I have never seen that in my area. I guess they get taken out before we get them.

That's because you live around Philly. We people from there know better than to eat weird things from butt you have paid for!

Being from Philly I can attest to the fact we wouldn't eat stuff like that....... unless you ground it up and stuck it in scrapple with the snouts, ears and other "prime" pig parts...LOL!!

I like scrapple!! and corn meal mush, some buttered bread with apple butter on it. I bring some home (frozen) every time I am in Florida. Of course the grocery checkers always ask" What's that?" It's better not to explain. I tell them it's a Board game involving words.

We just had some pan fried Rapa scrapple this past week with eggs over easy and home fries... yummy. You just can't read the label!!

Okay, so speaking of pork butt.

You probably do have it in your pork butts, it's not normally removed. It's just not in every one of them.

I am going to think positively and say they have all been removed from any pork I ate. I get the hint to start a new topic if I want to talk about smoking scrapple

So, how do you locate the gland without slicing up the whole butt? The one I found was in the end opposite the bone. Is that where it's normally found? Only found it 'cause I was slicing it up to make some pork sausage. Seems like maybe if you squared of that end of the butt you'd be rid of it. Assuming it's always in about that same place. Man, I don't want to eat one of those things. YUK!!!

Can't tell you how to find it any better than the pictures above. You can see the bone in the photos for reference.

wow! i been waiting for smokin to post these pics, in a different thread. i guess i should have looked around, huh. hey smokin, just so you know, my name is mike, not don...heehee
i sent you all but the first photo. now heres my take on the gland, which is yet to be identified by a scientific name:
well, its pretty darn yuckie, to say the least. and yes, 9 out of ten butts that consumer (you and me) buys from the butcher, sams, or major distributor, will have that gland hidden inside, just waiting to be eaten! what i do is timely, and costly(as just yesterday i got a major finger cut from doing it in a hurry), but the final product is free from that particularly unpleasant odor that makes certain folks want to smother a butt in vinegar to disguise. if you find this gland, cut it open and smell. its like a quart jar full of hog sweat sitting around in a stink room for a week....
actually, i was just probably exaggerating a bit. most people dont recognize the flavor, and those that do, think its normal for pork to taste that way.
ok, (whew! time for decaff)
usually the gland can be found inside the fat cap, around the end of the bone on what i would call the low side of the butt. there is, as you can see, a ton of crappy stuff in this area too. simply remove any obstruction that prevents you from seeing pure meat. usually this will render the gland from its hidding place. sometimes, i have to cut out part of the fat cap to find it. the good news is that once you have cut away all this stuff, you cook time will be reduced by an hour or two as there are less obstructions for the heat.
anybody want to see first hand, come by my restaurant and i will show ya...heehe

Thanks Don, uh, I mean Mike

Just TRY to keep all the emails and names straight is a challenge.

And I'm old and forgetful. That's my story.

Sorry Mike

Mike,

From your description and the photos, I'm confused.

I know it's hard to describe without a movie and charts to show, but looking at the photos, I think when you say Fat Cap, to me that means the false fat cap on the top.

Maybe we can come up with a descripion for sure.

To me, on the opposite side of the false fat cap (the hard rather stringy looking fat that looks like it has meat running through it) turn it over.

Towards the bone end, there is a "vein of fat" that usually runs the width of the butt. That's where I find it.

And as for your offer to open it and cut it, uh, no thanks.

Russ

Here's the new photo you sent.

I wish I had seen this BEFORE I cooked the 6 butts the last 2 nites. Missed a really good chance to explore this "gland". I'll have to explore the butts when I pull them saturday. It sounds a lot worse when you call it a "butt gland"

rt64

Smokin & Mike

I'm more confused than ever about where to find this gland and I don't think I have seen it in my butts unless I just cut it out not knowing what it was.

Is it nearer the blade end or the shank end. The pictures almost look like the shank, but not sure. I'm just guessing that the gland might be a lymph gland such as you would find in your own arm pit.

And if that is a reasonable comparison, is the location of this mysterious gland analogous to what would be the arm pit of the hog?

thats a good analogy. the arm pit.
usually its in the bottom of the 'V' or split. it aint visible, its buried in all that tissue. the easiest way is to just look at the last photo above. i pried this one out form deep, and am holding it up for the camera. all the white stuff in the 'V' area that is covering what should be red meat, i cut away. the gland is not always in the exact same place, but its always in that area. just cut away all that junk, and it will be easier. sometimes in the junk, sometimes under it or around it. working on another photo for smokin, with a clean view...

In addition to smoking whole butts I cut them up to make sausage from time to time.

As such, I have always been cutting the glands out.

For those that are confused about the subject - simple rule of thumb is to remove anything that doesn't look "right" including all the wet, soggy "meat by-products" as shown in the photos at the top of this topic - you will likely get the gland at the same time.
(Who wants to eat that junk anyhow ?)

Here's a new photo:<br /><br />

quote:

The circles represent the area where the gland is usually found. The square is the heart of the 'false fat cap' smokin was talking about.<br />sometimes, the gland is buried in that fat cap.<br />this particular butt has been cleaned of most of the 'junk',exposing red meat to the rubs and smoke falvors.

[IMG]

So do you recommend to de-bone the butt prior to smoking and applying the rub inside the butt as well?

You can try it and see if you like it, if you've been doing bone in butts, try one the other way.

For my home use, I don't debone and do the minimal cutting of fat (fat is flavor) the bone is a good heat conductor.

Now that we are all concerned and know what to look for,there is another thought.

If you cook a couple cases of 8 lb, bone in butts, low & slow,around 235�,you let it set through the plateau to render,you take them up over 195�,you pull them and discard anything you wouldn't serve to friends -will it make a lot of difference?

Just something to ponder ,over the weekend.

Heck, we've been eating it for years. Why should we be concerned now about this mysterious butt gland. BTW, "Thanks a lot Mike" for bringing this up LOL! . My thought is, if I happen to find it, good. If not, as long as the wife never sees this thread with those pics of the dreaded butt gland I'm ok

Doing some B'backs and a 8# choice brisket flat with a nice fat cap. Lookiing forward to it!

Have a great weekend all...

Well, I'm no expert, but from what I see, they look like lymph nodes. Are they egg-shaped and kind of rubbery? That's how they palpate on a mammography exam. And they are in the axilla. That goes along with your description. Maybe the pigs were fighting an infection. The first picture is with a knife inserted into something. That looks like an artery to me. Do they all taste bad? Maybe some are infected glands and some are not.
Peggy

I've not come across this in the pork butts we've used. Maybe you have a bad disease going on in your area, just kidding. I like picnics better, anyway.
Peggy

the first pic was not me. smokin' will have to dig into memory banks for that one. i tried boneless a few times. i loved the flavor, and the speed in which they cooked(important in commercial settings), but they had the gland also, and were almost as junkie. the biggest proble with boneless was the inability to move them around in the smoker. it was like trying to move around an 8 pound jug of jellow without the jug...heehee

Hmm, I don't quite get this. Why do you think we are eating this? My butts are full of fat, a bone, etc. When I pull, I get rid of all of that, or it has dissolved. Wouldn't this be true of any gland that is in a butt?

why gutt a fish before cooking? because it taints the meat....
same thing applies here.....

I cut up a butt last weekend to make sausage and did find the gland - thanks to Smokin' and Mike.

Based on the response from Mike on Aug. 19th to my question and locating the gland on the butt I was working with, I am convinced that this mysterious gland is indeed a lymph gland together with the related lymphatic tissue. If you can picture the anatomical postioning of the butt (shoulder) to the whole pig, the location of the gland is in what could be considered the arm pit of the pig.

Don't know what it would taste like, but I cut open the one from the butt I cut up last weekend and it did not smell bad. I tossed it just because it is nasty looking and too much fatty tissue.

I know this post is old but is there any way we can get the pictures back, I'd like to see what you were talking about.

ya

I'm working on it, I'll update you when I get it done.

Thanks Boss way to go on the pics.