Pork Butts

The question is what internal temperature do you reach before you pull them out of the smoker? If they're too mushy, then you're probably hitting something over 200 or 210... or holding too long. Try finishing at about 190 internal...

kenny,
this is how i do my 10 pound pinics every week in my 150's.
dead cold meat 32f or below into cold smoker.
temp set at 210.
wood load is max. i usse 2 smoke stix discs of oak to one disc of pecan. width cut to fit a 150 fire box width.
time is set to 14 hours.
hold is set to 180.
shrinkage is minimal and yield beats butts by 3%.
internal varies from 185 to 190. the low side gives the juiceiest product but takes a little to pull.
picnics are cooked skin side down on racks.
bark is good to great according to the guy who always puts in a special order for outside only and pays 2 bucks more to get it.
rub has brown sugar, no granulated and no fancy turbadio or however you spell that. just a down and dirty homemade rub developed with overall cost in mind while attaining a better than commercial taste for my market
hope it helps some
jack
nice to see another pro using the electrics. 2 years back i never used my wife's sm150 now we have two of the things. learning curve was little troublesome but zeb helpped me a bunch and so did candy sue. now i use the sm's 75% of the time and the fec is now a holding oven that gives out smoke to attract customers, bakes my biscuits and does peg's chicken

Jack got a couple of questions. We have been cooking 2 to 3 cases of bone in butts a week with pretty good results until... We got the new 150 a few weeks back and have been using the probe since. Now I notice the bark is not as good but at the same time the meat is more juicy and yeild is up maybe 3-4 percent. I had been cooking butts for 12 hours at 225. With the probe they are done at 9 to 10 hours. Maybe I was overcooking before. Because of my bankers hours, before they went into a hold cycle of 150 for 3 or 4 hours before I got to them most of the time. I like the old bark with the new moistness. After reading your post today I want to try cooking at 200 with the probe and holding at a higher temp. How do you think holding at a higher temp., say 175 will affect the bark? I am not familiar with using shoulders. Do you use picnics or full shoulders? I suspect you are using picnics because of the 10 pound weight. Do you have to dispose of any fat when pulling? I always mix any fat into the meat when pulling. I have heard that in NC where they cook more whole hog the professionals chop the rine or skin up and mix it with the pork. Since you are using the skin on shoulder what do you do with the majority of the skin? It would appear to me the skin is not going to get crisp unless you cook it additionally after pulling it off the shoulder. Also are you slathering with mustard before rubbing the shoulders? I think we will try adding a little brown sugar as you do to our rub on pulled pork cooked in the 150. Our round of competitions will be starting here in two weeks where we use WSMs so no sugar there. The locals are after our hides this go-round after we took Reserve last year. We are looking forward to an exciting year. As usual I sure do appreciate your generous participation on the forum. Keep stokin and smokin.

I'm not Jack and I don't own a 150 but I recently switched from on offset to a Smokette and experienced the same phenomenon that you did. Less bark but juicier, more tender meat. I solved the problem by adding more brown sugar to the rub and really loading it on. I prep the butts, lay the rub on real heavy, cover and put in the fridge for several hours. About 30 minutes before the cook I take em back out of the fridge and load on more rub, as much as will stay on. This method has put on a really thick bark but not quite as hard as from the offset. Actually, I like it better that way because I always thought the bark from the offset was a little chewy.

I'm no pro,but I do cook with a few-on a regular basis.

TaktEZ,has a pretty good KISS approach.

Why would you not use brown sugar,when cooking comps in a WSM?

Thanks for the input. I cannot get picnics this week so I am going with the bone in butts.
Prisonchef I would love to pick you brain for a bit. You are a wealth of knowlege.
cheers to all and keep the info flowing.
KK

hawsfli,
taktez has the right idea. add some brown sugar for bark formation. while i haven't used a new probe model i don't think that the new model is the problem and zeb (member here got me on the right track when i was having 150 issues. he has a 250.) we use picnics and cook them fat side down due to 2 reasons. one the bark formation is better and two since the heat source is coming up from below it protects the meat more doing this. fat is minimal and the skin does get crisp. we don't chop the rind due to florida customer preferences but it makes a pretty good treat for me although common sense and doctors orders have made me cut way back on this one. the reason i hold at a higher temp is to get some sleep. i listened to zeb with his moisture problem and his solution but for me working two jobs it just made more sense to hold at higher temp and let evaporation due it's work for me. took some trial and error but it's the way i go.
i think the hardest part for me was to totally forget competition and those techniques as too be honest for me they are too time consuming with no real improvement over quality (which is decided by the paying customer anyway) and quantity or yield (and this is where you can make more profit. a shrinkage reductionof 3 percent isn't much until you take that 2 or 3 pounds in extra weight and multiply that by 52 weeks and then figure out your addional FREE money)
i use no mustard slather. i just put the rub on the frozen picnics and let them set while i trim the brisket and then kind of smooth that out.
picnis are added to the lowest shelves with the brisket going on the very top shelf.
good luck on your comps and i am sure pulling for you to do well. while i miss comps to some degree i agreed with my boss that this year was the big push for increasing sales and we so far have been successful in doing that. our custom meat orders are way up and i sure am glad she let me get our 2nd sm150.

kenny,
if i can be of any help just send a message. i owe a lot to a lot of pros on this forum and would be glad to share ideas. some of their ideas worked great, and some were the kind where ya smak yourself in the head and solve a problem before you know it's there.
the only trouble part for me was switching my mind set from comp to production while retaining better than comp quality as far as the buyer is concerned. if you have been doing comps this may cause a few problems but if you look at R.O.I and R.O.C.A they become your new judges working hand in hand with the customer and tough judges they are too!!!
one other thing. if you have the optional cookshack smoke hood for the 150 i have found that when the temp stays consistantly over 90 degrees in my cooking area that i need to lower my cook temp 5 degrees on the panel. i feel this is due to the increased draft caused by the hood which is quite effective.
jack
hawsfli. man been a long day. the hold temp listed is for only 2 hours. this lets me load the rig,hook up, tow, unhook and get the gennies running. total transport time is 30 mins and the only thing i do is put foil over the picnics 2 to the pan. i pull when i get there and transfer back to the 150 set at 150 holding temp. good thing i had to take the greyhounds out between the rain bands from our bannana wind down here. sorry if i caused any confusion. on custom meat orders which i deliever the above technique is followed also.

Jack, I am delighted. Last night we tried some of your techniques. We smoked butts without mustard slather (first time ever)and were absolutely pleased. Just washed the butts off good with vinegar, sprinkled with our standard rub cut 50% with brown sugar and into the 150. Used probe set at 200 and hold at 180 for approximately 4 hours. Perfection personified. Great bark and super moist meat. Little tougher to pull but well worth it. Thanks again for your contributions. Keep stokin and smokin.

Results
Well I had to use bone-in butts- rubbed them good with 1/2 brown sugar and 1/2 rib rub. Nice bark.
I cooked them 11 hours at 210- filled the wood box with hickory.
Results- very moist and very very tender- not to much pull or stringy.
Tasted great but looking for less mush- I will do it an hour or two less???????????/
cheers
Kenny K

I'm no expert,but here are a couple of questions

The mushiness is almost a pure function of internal temp,as said above.

The ease of pulling is also.

What internal temps are the butts going to?

Have the butts been pumped with solution?

Have you run a separate remote probe near the CS probe?

How big are the butts?

Have they been previously frozen?

I'm curious about what you consider mushy.

Are you looking for pork that is suited to chopping with a cleaver,slicing,pulling by hand?

What is your test for tender?

Are you wanting to cook at certain temps, to control the time when the meat comes out of the cooker?

Tom
Great questions.
I tossed the box- i will call my meatman and find out if they are pumped or frozen. Which happens alot with pork.
I need to buy a remote probe ASAP-
the meat taste great- I am a new to this and have always seen pulled pork that is stringy-

I love the taste

Kenny,the closest bbq to you that I can reference, would be City BBQ in Columbus.

Those guys are ex comp cooks and seem to turn out a pretty fair restaurant product.

If you are near them,you might stop,eat,and pick their brains.

Smokin' Okie and I have a bunch of years of CS 150 cooking between us.

When we hear a little more about your specifics,we might be able to help a little.

Great to hear. I will call my sister she lives down there. I will not be getting out anytime soon. I work about 70 hours a week, have a 2 year old, another baby due in 30 days, just sold my house and have to move into a rental while try and find a new house.
I will take you up on the offer. My staff refuses to use the Cookshack i had to put my foot down- It is a great tool. We have not even begun to use it to its full potential.
thanks
Kenny
you can check out my webstie- www.triflescatering.com

Point out to them that along with the great number of well known bbq joints that use them,many" fine dining" establishments do,as well.

All of Emeril's restaurants have them,and I've occasionally posted recipes from them.

Here is a pretty well established family bbq chain that has them in your general vicinity,if they'd like to check out the ability for restaurants to integrate them into their operation.

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