Questions about boneless pork shoulders

DenaSmoker · May 2015

I was wondering if there is a difference in cooking a boneless pork shoulder than a bone in pork shoulder? I have done many bone in pork shoulders, and I allow for about 2 hours per pound for those. For some reason the Restaurant Depot by me does not sell bone in pork shoulders, but the price is hard to beat for the boneless.

minniemoh · May 2015

I usually end up with boneless shoulders from Costco. They cook up just fine. Sometimes I tie them up, sometimes I don't. As for cook time, they vary as it depends on your cooking temp. 2 hrs per pound must mean that you're going at 225 degrees? If that's your cook temp, I would say that's about right.

DenaSmoker · May 2015

Yes I'm usually in the area of 225 degrees. But the lack of a bone doesn't really change fast it cooks or anything like that. I always cook to temp, but I wanted to make sure it doesn't cook in half the time or anything like that. Just trying to hit a 3-4 hour window for a party.

mahenryak · May 2015

@DenaSmoker I might suggest turbo since timing is important--plus, it turns out great. If you cook at 300 F you can go from start to finish in a much shorter time frame, and really not sacrifice quality. I just did two 7 lb butts in six hours this past weekend. Turned out great according to my wife and guest.

DenaSmoker · May 2015

So cooking wise there is no difference between an boneless or bone-in pork shoulder?

ryantt · May 2015

@DenaSmoker I've found that they cook at close to the same rate. I've only done 2 boneless but they were really close to my normal, maybe a hair faster, but that could have been do to the meat itself.

mahenryak · May 2015

DenaSmoker said:

So cooking wise there is no difference between an boneless or bone-in pork shoulder?

Just to clarify, mine were boneless this past weekend.

DenaSmoker · May 2015

Thanks for everyone's input...I really appreciate it! I have done probably about 30 bone-in pork shoulders, and except for a few that went wonky I've been able to rely on the 2 hours per pound and get close enough to FTC.

SGH · May 2015

DenaSmoker said:

So cooking wise there is no difference between an boneless or bone-in pork shoulder?

The difference is minuscule. Usually a property deboned and shaped cut will cook ever so slightly faster. But you are talking about mere minutes at best. For all practical purposes, the cook time is roughly the same. Not enough difference to concern yourself with.

DenaSmoker · May 2015

So I figured I would comment on my boneless pork should cook over the holiday weekend.

As I unpacked the 19.12# boneless pork butts I had 2 in a package which what I wanted. I weighed them and one was 9.1# and the other was 10#. Close enough for me.
I noticed that there was a pretty large cavity from where the bones had been removed. So I had some meat "hanging" and I tried to tuck it all in so I would have one nice big loaf like with the other bone-in pork butts I had previously done. I wanted to tie them up with butchers twine, but could not locate any in the house. I have since ordered some.
So at 4pm I put them on grill at 225. I was aiming for a finish time anywhere between 10am and noon.

Well at 4am I checked my wireless monitor and the 10# was at 192. So at 12 hours I was only 3 degrees away from my usual pull temp of 195. I started to worry a bit, but I figured I could always keep them warm in the oven I really had to. I decided to do nothing, and I know people usually pull them anywhere from 195 to 205. So I decided to wait until 200 to pull them and if it was too early to FTC them then I would just keep thim warm in the oven until I could FTC them.

At 6am both butts where at 193, and I was hoping for some kind of stall. Of course I am up the entire time worrying. Well it did stall and both butts hit 200 at about 10:10am which was close enough for me to FTC since I was shredding them at 1230.

I would like to try them again, but this time I would like to tie them up because I think the middle being exposed from the removal of the bone caused the butts to cook different that I am used to. All in all both butts took about 18 hours.

Of course everything tasted great as usual, but I was a pretty worried at 4am.
I just thought I would share my story with boneless pork butts.

Sidenote: after the butts came off I cooked 2 batches of ABT's totaling 4 dozen. The egg was burning for 22 hours with no problems at all. It truly is amazing!

Ladeback69 · May 2015

DenaSmoker said:

I was wondering if there is a difference in cooking a boneless pork shoulder than a bone in pork shoulder? I have done many bone in pork shoulders, and I allow for about 2 hours per pound for those. For some reason the Restaurant Depot by me does not sell bone in pork shoulders, but the price is hard to beat for the boneless.

That's interesting. The Restaurant Depot here usually has both, but the bone in is 20 cents cheaper. Like what @SGH said not much difference in them. You may want to tie it up a little. I used two boneless pork butts for carnitas and cooked most of it in two CI DO's, but part of it didn't fit so cooked it whole. It came our good, just should have tied it up to hold it together better. Plain cotton twine or rope should work that you can get at the hardware store so I am told. Sounds like you have some good food for today.

pescadorzih · May 2015

I did a couple of butts for a coworker a few weeks back. 2 were bone in and 2 were not. I tried to tie them up with some butchers string. It was a PITA and wish they were bone in. I was just pulling them so appearances didn't matter.
I just like bone in as they as more compact and less prep time.
Also, they were .40 more per lb than the bone in.

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