Cooking a butt direct

Yazoo · September 2004

It was suggested to try cooking a butt direct, at 225, to get some bark on it. Is there much risk of the drippings putting the fire out? Anyone done this?

yaB · September 2004

Yazoo,
Why go direct? You'd get plenty of bark during a "normal" indirect low/slow cook. You could encourage bark formation by starting at a higher cooking temp, say 275º or 300º, then cranking the temp down as the cooking progresses. (Or if you have a Guru, you could let it do that work for you.)[p]I suppose the dripping fat could put the fire out, but when the fat hits the hot coals and either flares up or smolders, it will produce some nasty byproducts, some of which will coat the butt, and none of which you'd want to ingest.[p]Bob

fishlessman · September 2004

Yazoo, i havent done pulled pork dirrect, but i have done a corned beef brisket direct and didnt have any problem with the fire. i get a good bark on pulled pork by raising the meat as high in the dome as possible and as far away from the drip pan as is reasonable. on top of pizza stone i put the drip pan with a fire brick on edge on both sides, extended rack on stones and butt on extended rack. the meat is within a half inch of the dome when closed. a meat therm is inserted into the meat up into the top dome hole and can be read thru the daisy. the heat radiating from the dome adds to the bark. i dont worry about grill temps and only moniter the dome temp where the meat is cooking. just make sure the dome gage isnt in the meat

Cooking a butt direct

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