Brined Pork Butt for Pulled Pork

[DivotMaker]

OK DivotMaker, I have some of your brine cooling and a couple of pork shoulder picnic roasts (total weight about 9 pounds) that I'll be smoking in my Smokin It #1 Saturday.  Should I just brine overnight or longer?  Lots of outside fat too, do I leave it all on or cut some off?  I'm planning on trying fat side down and a tray of apple juice next to the smoke box.  Hope hubby can put up with my experiments. 

Suzie, overnight should be fine on those, considering the external fat.  The picnic cuts are sometimes really fatty, and still have skin on sometimes.  If you're making pulled pork, next time look for bone-in Boston butts.  This is the cut of the front shoulder, above the picnic cut.  It tends to have less connective tissue inside, and yields better pulled pork (it's pretty much the "gold standard" for pulled pork).  The meat of the picnic is good, but it's way more inconsistent than the Boston butt.

The rest of your smoke plan sounds good!

 

[Rossybandit7050]

Saw a thread somewhere talking about bone in Boston Pork Butte being the best for pulled pork. Any ideas on that.
Also , going to have a Hawaiian theme grad party for daughter doing pulled pork for approx 50 people. Should I figure say 1 pound per person or 1/2 pound.
Thanks for your help.

 

[Bear]

Tony,

That looks delicious.  I'm heading to your house for dinner.  Lol.  Going give it a try myself.  Thank you for sharing.

Bear

 

[DivotMaker]

Saw a thread somewhere talking about bone in Boston Pork Butte being the best for pulled pork. Any ideas on that.
Also , going to have a Hawaiian theme grad party for daughter doing pulled pork for approx 50 people. Should I figure say 1 pound per person or 1/2 pound.
Thanks for your help.

Rick - that's what this is thread is all about.  The bone-in Boston butt pork shoulder, imo, makes the absolute best pulled pork!

 

[Halfcocked]

Pics as promised...

Just did 2 shoulders with different rubs, one with Dave's Rib Rub, the other with Lambert's Sweet Rub O'mine. Brined for 3 days, smoked approximately 15 hours to 195F. Both shoulders together made about 36 sandwiches. (Hope that helps with Rick's questions). Pre-cooked weight for both shoulders was about 17lbs.

Turned out great, by the way!

 

[DivotMaker]

Wow, Jamey, the pics are great!  You didn't find it too salty after 3 days in the pool?  That's a long time for a butt brine!

 

[NDKoze]

As long as his rub was not too salty, I'm guessing it was OK. That is a fairly long time in the brine though. I don't think I have ever gone longer than 24 hours.

 

[DivotMaker]

I agree, Gregg.  I thought he used my butt brine, but forgot that he substituted Tender Quick for the salt/curing salt.  Not sure how salty that turned out, compared to kosher salt.

 

[Halfcocked]

You guys are correct. I would not have left this in a brine made of 1 cup of kosher salt for 3 days. 1 Cup of Tender Quick per 1 gallon of water per 5lbs of meat is almost never too salty for large cuts, no matter how long you leave it in (I leave whole venison hind quarters in a similar brine for 2 weeks!). This seems to be a good ratio. 1 Cup of Tender Quick is probably only about 1/2 cup of salt, with the rest being sugar and a small amount of sodium nitrate.

Here's the exact brine I am using:
1 Gallon of water
1 Cup Morton's Tender Quick
2 Cups brown sugar (packed)
1/2 Cup cider vinegar
3 Tbsp onion powder
1 Tbsp garlic powder
1 Tbsp coarse ground black pepper

The majority of meat curing I have done in the past is cold-smoking or low heat smoking (less than 160F internal temp), and corning. Hitting internal temps of 195F is very new to me. I brine almost everything. I use a lot of salt and I have found kosher salt to be way too salty, even when I drop the ratios down. For whatever reason, sea salt seems to be less salty than kosher salt when using the same amount. Not sure why. Tender Quick makes it even easier, as long as the recipe calls for sodium nitrate. Salt works quick, but sodium nitrate needs a lot more time to work its magic.

 

[Halfcocked]

By the way Tony, it was reading this post that prompted me to try pork shoulder in the first place. Even though I switched out the salt with Tender Quick, you got me started on this path, so thank you. The results have been so good I am doing buts #8 and #9 this weekend, with everyone clamoring for more!

 

[NDKoze]

Awesome! It is hard to mess things up with Tony's brine/butt recipe. The cool thing is that you can use the brine as the base and then get creative with the binder and the rub to change things up a bit.

 

[DivotMaker]

By the way Tony, it was reading this post that prompted me to try pork shoulder in the first place. Even though I switched out the salt with Tender Quick, you got me started on this path, so thank you. The results have been so good I am doing buts #8 and #9 this weekend, with everyone clamoring for more!

So glad it's working out for you! 8)  You're very welcome!

 

[Smokster]

Almost 4700 views of this post is a true testiment of the popularity of Tony's great brine recipe. The results are fabulous.

 

[DivotMaker]

Almost 4700 views of this post is a true testiment of the popularity of Tony's great brine recipe. The results are fabulous.

Wow - I really hadn't even noticed that!  I never thought, growing up, that my "15 minutes of fame" would be a pork butt brine! Hahahaha!! ;D

 

[tnlyne]

Well, I've created two batches of brine from DM's recipe for a couple of 7.5 lb pork butt's. I slightly modified the recipes by using Morton Tender Quick (1 cup) in place of the instacure and salt. I also threw in a little Thyme and Rosemary just for the fun of it. The brine batch's will chill overnight in my garage since it's like 20 degrees outside here now. Figure I'll start the pork butt brine swim tomorrow morning and let it go for about 10-12 hours (this seem about right to you experts out there?). Then, I was going to pull them from the swim and pat dry, rest in fridge for an hour or two, apply mustard and rub, wrap in saran for at least 4 hours and toss in the smoker very early friday morning (i.e. 1-2am) for a dinner on friday night. Does 10-12 hours cook time at 225 sound about right for a couple of these 7.5 lb butt's in the smoker together? I also only have one meat probe now so I'll have to use one as the gauge for the cook.

 

[DivotMaker]

Tony, I can't attest to the substitution of Tender Quick, but I think others have done it.  Your plan sounds solid, except I would recommend a good rinse when they come out of the pool - you want to get that excess salt off the surface.  Also, no real need for any kind of "rest" out of the brine.  Rinse, dry, rub, and into the smoker!  Easy peasy!

 

[tnlyne]

I have about 15 pounds of boston butt probably around 7.5 each one. What do you recommend for the cook time. I'm planning to invite company over friday night around 6pm. I would like to time it so it's just starting the resting process around 2-4pm. Recommended pull temp for rest is 190? 200?

 

[NDKoze]

I always start my butt smokes around 12:00am-1:00am and it works out really well. I think if you start smoking around midnight and pull at 195 you'll be good.

If for some reason they get done early, you can drop the smoker temp down to 140 when the meat internal temperature hits 190-193 and let it rest in the smoker until 4:00. Since the smoker is insulated so well, it will retail its internal temperature for quite a while (even in the cold Midwest temps), and the carry over will take it pretty close to 195. At 4:00, double-wrap in foil, and let rest in the smoker for 1-2 hours with some towels on top. Then pull at 5:30-6:00 to pull the meat.

Or you can pull the butts from the smoker at 195, double-foil wrap, and let rest in the cooler for up to four hours and then pull.

 

[tnlyne]

Dual Pork Butt's now in the SI2 at 12:20am. Temp set @225. Outside temp is a COLD 0 degrees and falling. Looking forward to some nice pulled pork sandwiches tomorrow night.

 

[DivotMaker]

Any updates, 18 hours in, Tony?