The Guide: Reddit Tips
Alright… you can cook it about 225F, 250F, or 275F. I normally go about 225 because I have a Smokey Mountain and it’s made to cook around that temp. Season with a pork rub or just use half kosher salt and pepper, some garlic powder, onion powder, and plenty of paprika. Rub all over, using mustard or olive oil as binder (I normally use oil). Cook fat side up until 170F (make sure you see a split in the fat) and then wrap and cook until about 203F. Let rest for an hour or so, pull apart and enjoy. Big sucker might take 10-11 hours. Get ready to eat good.
Mustard as a binder. Liberally season. Low and slow, 225-235 till it hits 205. Expect a stall at 165-180. Don’t give up and don’t raise the heat. Allow 12-14 hours. Wrap in foil. Or cooler. Pull, before serving and after resting. I like to inject with little apple cider vinegar, water and jalapeño juice from canned or bottled jalapeños. Use a temp probe, so you are not stabbing it every couple of hours. A drip pan is a good idea. Good luck! Enjoy.
Here’s the last set of pork butt instructions you’ll ever need. Trim your butt sparingly removing the thick hard fat. Leave a layer of 1/4-1/3” where there is fat (trust me, it will render). It’s easiest to trim straight out of the fridge.
Next slather a little bit of mustard coating every surface. Dry rub your butt liberally coating every surface with a brown sugar/paprika based rub (look up a recipe and pick your favorite). Sit your butt on a wire rack with a drip tray in the fridge uncovered for 24hrs or in your case as long as you can.
Next preheat your grill as close as you can get to 225° (my pellet grill has to be set to 220°). Once preheated, set your butt in the middle of the grill fat side up. Let it ride until it’s 202°-205° and probe tender (temp probe slides in and out like butter). No spritz, no looking, no nothing until you’re checking for probe tenderness. When I smoke a 7-8lb butt this way it usually takes 12-13 hours on the smoker. Rest for an hour or so on the counter at room temp before pulling.
This method is by far one of the easiest and will yield you the best pork butt bark you’ve ever had. I’ve easily cooked 30+ pork butts in the last two years and tried many different ways but this is the winner. Hope this helps, have fun and smoke on!
My Meat
- 3-ish lb Pork Shoulder (from the freezer)
- 1/2 c Brown Sugar
- 1/4 c Pepper
- 1/4 c Kosher Salt
- 1 T Garlic Powder
- 1 T Onion Powder
- 1 T Paprika
- Less Salt, More Sugar (or try a different recipe). This one was a bit salty, and didn't call for the Brown Sugar, which I added.
- No trimming necessary for this piece of meat.
- Coat the meat in yellow mustard, then liberally in the pork rub.
- Straight into the smoker (no resting, there was no time).
- Allow time for the rub to set in and absorb the salt. At least an hour, preferably longer, up to 24.
The smoke went from 9:20am to 8:00pm, around 10.5 hours for a 3-pound piece. This is mainly because I waited to wrap until it was too late. I could have wrapped after 4.5 hours and been done quicker.
- Preheat the smoker to 225 F.
- Place fat-side up, directly on the rack, middle of the smoker. (There really wasn't a fat-side on this piece.)
- Half-vent open.
- Smoker pellets check every 30 minutes.
- Remove at 178 F and wrap in foil.
- Increase heat to 275 F and finish.
- Eat immediately (because there was no time to rest)
- Follow the first Reddit tip, instead of the 3rd, and treat it like a brisket: Pull at 160 and wrap. Bump temp to 275 to finish.
- Let the meat rest appropriately.
- Keep vent at half-open the whole time, instead of changing back and forth. It didn't make a difference.
- The bark was nice and firm, maybe a little too firm as it was a bit difficult to cut through at places and came off in large chunks.
- The meat was juicy/tender in some parts, but dry/tough in other parts. None of it fell apart like pulled pork. This is probably because of a general lack of fat on the piece, failure to wrap early, and the length of the cook.
- Overall, the flavor was decent, but a bit salty from the poor rub recipe calling for equal parts salt/pepper. Need to find another recipe or treat it like a brisket and do a 1:4 ratio salt to pepper.
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