Smoking A Pork Butt
19 May 2018
In which I smoke a butt
I'm teaching myself how to use my propane grill to smoke stuff. First, I will try pork butt because it's forgiving and not terribly expensive.
Pork butt is actually from the shoulder of the pig. A ham is on the pig's ass. For the sake of this post, I will use the term "Pork Butt" or simply "Butt" to refer to the cut of meat in question, because it's a lot of fun to type Pork Butt.
Ingredients:
- 3lb bone in pork butt
- Coarse salt
- Ground black pepper
- Chipotle powder, or chili powder but make sure there is no extra salt in it
- Heavy-ish tinfoil
- Butcher paper or parchment paper
- A pan or something to catch pork butt fat
- Wood chips for smoking pork: Hickory, pecan, cherry, apple, etc.
- A propane grill with a rack and multiple burners
- A thermometer with a remote probe
- A spray bottle with some apple cider vinegar
Here are the steps:
- Fill a shaker with the equal parts salt, pepper, and chili P.
- Shake this mixture generously over your butt, and then rub it into your butt a little.
- Place your butt back in the fridge overnight.
- The next morning, let your butt chillax on the counter until it reaches room temperature. This will take like 60-90 minutes.
- Make a foil packet and fill it with wood chips. I used pecan, but you can experiment with other kinds. Poke a small hole in the packet. You want a small hole to limit the oxygen coming in so your chips don't combust.
- Turn on the left burner to medium, and place the smoke packet on the left side of the grill.
- After about 20 mins, when you've got some smoke and the grill has reached 250°:
• Position your butt on the right side of the grill, on the top rack.
• Impale your butt with your thermometer probe.
• Protect your butt by placing a pan underneath your butt because your butt will leak fat. This is important because if you don't, the fat will catch fire and everything will be ruined.
- Close the lid and maintain 250°.
- Every hour or so, check the smoke packet to make sure it's still smokin', and spritz the butt with your apple cider vinegar.
- After ~4-6 hours, when your butt has reached an internal temperature of 150°, wrap your butt in paper with a splash of apple cider vinegar.
- Bring the grill to 300° and cook until the butt reaches an internal temperature of ~200°, after ~4 hours. You can also finish it off in the oven since we're done smoking, and only cooking the butt at this point.
- When the cook is complete and the butt has reached an internal temperature of ~200°, remove it from the oven and let your butt rest on the counter for an hour. You will know it's shred-ready when you can pull the bone out of your butt with minimal resistance.
- Finally the payoff: Unwrap and shred your butt. Eat that butt.
