I smoked 2 pork butts, about 7.6 lbs each. The store only had boneless, so they wanted to separate some when I put them on the racks. I didn't have any string, so I just tucked them in best I could. I injected them with Super Dave's pork injection. I rubbed one with the pork butt rub from this forum and the other with Bad Byron's Butt Rub. I removed the fat cap from one and scored the fat cap on the other. The cook temps were a little weird, but I have learned to trust the Lazy-Q method. I used 3.5 oz of maple and two 2 oz chunks of cherry, one of which was soaked in water to delay the onset of smoke. I think it helped keep smoke going longer. They both hit 186* in 3 hours, which seemed awful quick to me. A big storm came through with lots of wind, and at 6 hours they had actually dropped to 181*. I went on to bed without worry, planning to check them again at 12 hours. At 12 hours (4:00 AM) I tried to check the temp on my phone but couldn't connect to my ThermoPro. I went outside and it had shut off. I turned it on and they were both at 203*. I wrapped them in foil and just put them in a cold oven since I planned to pull them about 8:30.
Scoring the fat cap is the way to go! The meat was moister and the scoring allowed me to get rub down in the crevices. I will always do that in the future. Also, if you know a cook will take at least 12 hours, don't worry about the temperatures along the way. Trust the Lazy-Q method!
Scoring the fat cap is the way to go! The meat was moister and the scoring allowed me to get rub down in the crevices. I will always do that in the future. Also, if you know a cook will take at least 12 hours, don't worry about the temperatures along the way. Trust the Lazy-Q method!