Butt questions

Animal Eater · March 2003

I found a choice organic Boston Butt, de-boned and tied, for $1.99/lb. Made Elder's rub with the sage leaves. Put it on my 200F BGE at midnight fueled by a big pile of BGE lump topped with a hickory chunk about 5 inches in diameter. I woke up about every 3 hours to check the temp. and for a while it crept up to 250F. Closed off the vents a little and it went back down to 225. By 10 am, my hunk-o-pig was a Polder-confirmed 201F. Pulled it apart, made a sauce, you know the rest. It was heaven on a bun.
Questions-
I know some of you cook butts for a lot longer than 10 hours… what happens with extended cooking times, like 16 hours?
Does a short period of cooking at elevated temperatures, like 250F, compromise the final product?
At what internal temp do you folks usually pull the meat off?
Are the final results affected if you add the smoking agent at the beginning versus the middle of the cook? I just put the hickory hunk in at the beginning because I didn't want to disassemble my apparatus. Once I shut the lid, it stayed shut until I heard the Polder…
Thanks

Wise One · March 2003

Animal Eater, my own opinion is that it is more a difference in the pulling rather than the eating. When I cook it at around 225 for 2 hours or so per poound, I find that everything that is not meat tends to fall out or disappear, The meat falls completely off the bone and gristle while the fat virtually disappears. When it is cooked faster, the bone pulls out easily but the meat tends to cling to the gristle a bit and there is a lot more fatty tissue that needs to be pulled out and discarded. However, either way, the eating is magnificent.

JSlot · March 2003

Animal Eater,[p]IMHO, you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between a butt cooked 1½ hours/lb. @ 250-275° versus one cooked 2 hours/lb. @ ~225°. I did a yield comparison on two butts that had a precooked weight of 8 lb. 6 oz. exactly. I had my butcher trim them up to that weight at the store. The net yield on the 250-275° butt was 4 lb. 11 oz. and the yield on the 225° butt was 4 lb. 9 oz. There was no difference in the way they pulled. For me, the extra cooking time just doesn't make sense any more.[p]In regard to the smoke, as others have scientifically proven, the meat stops absorbing the smoke somewhere in the 135-140° range, so adding your smoking wood at the beginning of the cook is the way to go.[p]Keep the smoke risin'
Jim

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