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Boneless vs Bone-in Pork Butt. Taste Difference?

AZbge
AZbge Posts: 96
edited April 2012 in EggHead Forum
Costco seems to only carry boneless.  My butcher carriers bone-in.  Anyone think there is a difference in taste or otherwise? 
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Comments

  • boatbum
    boatbum Posts: 1,273
    I think the bone helps when cooking - though, maybe its in my mind.   I always cook bone in anymore.
    Cookin in Texas
  • rsmdale
    rsmdale Posts: 2,472

    I like the bone in better they see to have better texture.Just my two sens.

                              GOOD EATS AND GOD FRIENDS

                                            DALE

     

                                      

     

            

  • Bone in. The pork is ready when the bone pulls out with a tug.

    BOOMER!
  • Taste is the same. I think they cook up better with the bone but that could all be BS.
    Keepin' It Weird in The ATX FBTX
  • Chubbs
    Chubbs Posts: 6,929
    Bone in. An easy gauge of how done it is aside from internal temp. Bone slides out clean, you are good
    Columbia, SC --- LBGE 2011 -- MINI BGE 2013
  • Mike8it
    Mike8it Posts: 468
    imageI did a comparison a couple of weeks ago. No difference at all. The one on the left was bone in and the one on the right was boneless.
  • Little Steven
    Little Steven Posts: 28,817
    Not much marrow in the shoulder bone so not much flavour

    Steve 

    Caledon, ON

     

  • stike
    stike Posts: 15,597
    ah steven yer not saying the marrow magically flavors a steak are you?
    bah.

    it's the fat and tissue around the bone that add the flavor.  no way that cooking a steak with a bone attached means the bone itself is adding flavor.  marrow doesn't leach out of the bone.
    ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante
  • Little Steven
    Little Steven Posts: 28,817
    Now there you go talking about steaks again. My comment was more towards things like leg of lamb, shanks and oxtails and the like. You can smite me all the same. Have you ever actually cooked anything other than steaks?

    Steve 

    Caledon, ON

     

  • stike
    stike Posts: 15,597
    i haven't even cooked a steak, other than in a toaster oven. i am saving up to buy an egg some day
    ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante
  • Mike8it
    Mike8it Posts: 468
    edited April 2012
    I love this forum
  • Little Steven
    Little Steven Posts: 28,817
    You don't get a lot of chances to B____ Slap the stikester so you need to jump when you can. :)>-

    Steve 

    Caledon, ON

     

  • Mike8it
    Mike8it Posts: 468
    I do like bone-in braised short ribs and oxtails
  • stike
    stike Posts: 15,597
    even in a leg of lamb, the bone doesn't allow the marrow to leach into the meat.  if it did, why wouldn't it happen when the lamb was alive? :))
    ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante
  • Mike8it
    Mike8it Posts: 468
    edited April 2012
    I think it's more about braising a certain cut in its own bone, marrow, liquids etc. than grilling it? Technique is half the battle
  • Little Steven
    Little Steven Posts: 28,817
    Um, cause it wasn't in a 325* environment? Whaddabout a chicken?

    Steve 

    Caledon, ON

     

  • Little Steven
    Little Steven Posts: 28,817

    Mike,

    I'll lose this for sure but he is gorgeous when he's angry

    B-)

    Steve 

    Caledon, ON

     

  • Mike8it
    Mike8it Posts: 468
    edited April 2012
    I wouldn't bet against stike. He has skills!!!
  • stike
    stike Posts: 15,597
    immature chicken bones will stain chicken at the joints with marrow.

    but no mature animal flavors the meat with its bone marrow when it is cooked.  after a four hour braise of osso bucco, if i want to taste the marrow i can slide it out and eat it, but it isn't leaching through the bone into the meat.

    just doesn't happen.


    ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante
  • Mike8it
    Mike8it Posts: 468
    Good point stike. You can not argue that a bone has marrow in it and that it is easy to remove. When removed and made into a roux or gravy that it is delicious.
  • Little Steven
    Little Steven Posts: 28,817

    Oh, nice Mike! Kiss up. He is on unfamiliar turf here and I have him. The  intense flavour and richness of the marrow is assimilated into the braise. Even in a roasted piece of meat the natural juices will leach flavour from the marrow

     

    Steve 

    Caledon, ON

     

  • Mike8it
    Mike8it Posts: 468
    Rope a dope! Stike is looking more and more like he cooks aged steaks on a foreman grill
  • Little Steven
    Little Steven Posts: 28,817

    He is great at hanging rotten meat in his basement. Never actually saw him cook though

     

    Steve 

    Caledon, ON

     

  • Mike8it
    Mike8it Posts: 468
    edited April 2012
    I apologize for my last comment
  • Little Steven
    Little Steven Posts: 28,817
    Hey I was gonna hit him with the Georges Auguste Escoffier jus de vieu lis if he came back

    Steve 

    Caledon, ON

     

  • stike
    stike Posts: 15,597
    steven... you must not simply repeat what you have been told, you must understand what you see.
     
    the marrow in a braise could very well melt out the ends of a bone.  but even still it doesn't do that in any great amount.  you can pluck it out and work it into the sauce, but that's very different.

    and even then, we are far afield from where we started: the oft repeated statemnet that merely keeping the bone on a steak adds "more flavor".  that's been generalized to a point where people assume that a piece of meat cut off a bone in rib eye, from the far edge away from the bone, is still somehow more flavorful than the same chunk cut off a boneless rib eye.  that is foolish.

    two steak, both bone-in.  just before they go on the grill, i trim off the bone from one.  cook both identically.  i serve you two pieces, each cut from the side of the steak furthest from the bone.  if you can consistently detect a difference, you are a better man than most.

    i'll say that a bone-in steak has more fat and connective tissue where the meat joins the bone.  it's that fat and meat that gets the workout, and THAT's where the flavor is. 

    none of that flavor, though, has anything to do with marrow.
    marrow needs to be removed and integrated into a sauce or whatever you are making.  it has no ability to traverse non-porous bone and stain the entire roast with its flavor.

    more than a few of the old traditional kitchen myths have been proven false. because escoffier said it doesn't mean it is law.

    making stocks from bones... bones get roasted, they have meat on them, and the marrow is in contact with the water....  not the same as cooking a roast for an hour

    ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante
  • stike
    stike Posts: 15,597
    ...keep in mind that escoffier is the source for the idea that "searing meat seals in juices".


    ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante
  • RichardBronosky
    RichardBronosky Posts: 213
    edited April 2012
    It depends on the cut of meat, but since this has become a more generalized thread, I'll add this.

    In some cases, removing the bone will give you more exposed edible surface area. To me, the outside of the meat is the best. So, I'd rather remove the bone before cooking in those cases.
    I finally took the plunge and bought my large Big Green Easter Egg from Roswell Hardware in Roswell, GA 03/31/2012
  • imageI did a comparison a couple of weeks ago. No difference at all. The one on the left was bone in and the one on the right was boneless.
    Guess that about settles it. Nice.

    Keepin' It Weird in The ATX FBTX