5.5 pound butt failure

Tim (Watkinsville)

 This has never happened to me before. I put a 5.5 pound butt on yesterday morning at 1000. 240 degree dome. I had two probes in the butt (checking for accuracy on my older probe). It stalled at 135 for about 2 hours. Broke out of that and stalled again at 145-147. It just sat there for 2 hours. I raised the dome temp up to 300 to try to kick it off. It slowly got to 165 and sat again. At 5 PM I got the butt off, it was at 170 and steady. I brought it inside and zapped it for 2 minutes in the microwave. That got it to 185 finally. Foiled it and put it in the cooler for an hour. When I got it out it had gotten to 193. It would not pull. Tough as a pine knot. The blade bone was tight, no wiggle.
I wrapped it back up and threw it away. Has anyone else experienced this? It was a first for me for sure. I am stopping by Publix this evening to talk to the butcher. I don't expect a refund or anything like that. The only thing I can figure is it was just a bad butt. I have done well over 50 butts on my eggs and this is a first. 
If you have experienced this I'd appreciate hearing about it.

saluki2007

When was the last time you check your dome thermo for accuracy?

poster

pretty sure you didn't cook it enough. Ive never had one pull under 195 before

Focker

At 7 hrs, and the steps taken, I don't think you gave it enough time, and panicked along the way.

Even at 5.5lbs, butts can be stubborn.  Out of 6 I've done recently, the smallest 6lber was the only one on the drier side.  I pulled them all  in the same range, that one first

Not sure why you chucked it?  Could have at least braised to soften it up.

Tim (Watkinsville)

I have a friend who used to own a barbecue place up in Knoxville. He told me he always pulled his butts at 185 and let them rest for up to 3 hours. I have done that before with good results. Not this time though.
In retrospect I should have at least put it in a crockpot. Truth be told, I was sufficiently irritated that throwing it out seemed like the play. Oh well, this gives me a good reason for more smoking next weekend.

smokeyw

Don't use temperature as the final measure. It's good for a guideline but that's all. A butt or a brisket is done when it probes like butter.

Darby_Crenshaw

Just undercooked. 

The lowest i ever had to take one off (because it was time to eat) was 185. 

It needed to be forked apart quite a bit. Wouldn't shred   Guests still liked it, but it was drier and too tough. Underdone

as focker said, no reason to toss it. It still had a way to go. Some aren't done until 205

part of the problem i think is people graphing and monitoring and panicking. I don't check temps on them at all. When the thing jiggles and the bone pulls out, yer done

NPHuskerFL

Undercooked. Bone doesn't pull out after a wiggle...be patient and let it ride till it does. Could be a at 189℉-205℉ ish. Never time...always feel and temp. Patience

Theophan

This sounds incredibly frustrating!  I can understand why you wound up pitching it.  And if you've cooked 50 pork butts on the Egg, I certainly take your word for it that you know what you're doing and have WAY more experience than I do.  I don't know how many I've cooked, but it's a whole lot less than 50!

It does seem possible to me that you're exactly right, and if one butt out of 50 was just weird in how it cooked, maybe something was weird about that butt from the git go.

As a Monday Morning Quarterback, though, I have to agree with the others above, if your temp probes said the meat wasn't done, and your probing of the meat didn't reveal it getting tender, you had multiple indicators that it wasn't done, so one thing that's not surprising was that it didn't pull.  It never got hot enough to get pullable.  WHY it wasn't done seems mighty mysterious, but the fact is that it wasn't done.  So the thing to do if this ever happens again surely is to keep cooking it.  Maybe there was something totally weird about this butt and if you had kept cooking it, it never would have been good, but you know for sure from your experience with 50 butts that stopping the cook at an internal temp of 185° isn't going to lead to a pullable chunk of pork.  You also know for sure if you'd kept cooking it, sooner or later by gosh the temperature would HAVE to have kept rising.  If you got it to 205° or 210° internal and it still probed tough, then it might have been time to give up on it.  Or as @Focker said, maybe braise it and see if it could be salvaged somehow.

Real sorry this happened.  Sounds super frustrating!

Tim (Watkinsville)

OK, thanks to all for the comments. The last butt I did I pulled at 185 and wrapped it for 2 hours. I think this one was just not ready. My bad. And the comment about the blade bone wiggle is spot on. Usually when I get the butt out of the cooler and unwrap it, the bone falls out.
Next time I will tend to that bone.

saluki2007

Again, I would suggest checking your dome thermo to make sure it's calibrated correctly.  If your butt was stalling that many times and for that long your temp could be have been less then 240.  But, like you said, it could have just been a bad butt.  

Tim (Watkinsville)

I calibrate the dome thermometer once a year in the spring. I had another probe through the DFMT as well. Predictably, it was higher than the dome thermometer by about 25 degrees give or take.

henapple

At 195, if you can't shred you can still slice... It's good. Another thought is on the second stall just wrap and go to 300.

blasting

I used to cook until the magic bone wiggle.  For the last 20+ butts I set the alarm to 203, and I don't even check the butt until the alarm goes off.  I've been consistently happy.

Theophan

Tim (Watkinsville) said:

... And the comment about the blade bone wiggle is spot on....

I think sometimes we get too "scientific" and we're paying too much attention to time and temperature, and not enough to just poking the meat and letting it speak to us.

I haven't cooked nearly as many pork butts as you have, but it's been clear to me that temperature only will give me a rough guide as to when to start poking/probing to see if it's done (tender) or not.  Sometimes they're done well below 200°, but I've gone over 200° at least a few times to get the meat truly tender.  And I've never thought it was dry (though I always mix in a little bit of Elder Ward's vinegar-based sauce to the pulled pork which adds a bit of moisture).

BikerBob

In my admittedly limited experience, a 5.5 pound butt would take 11 hours at 250 dome. I don't have my egg connected to a computer or anything else to monitor. The dome is calibrated and I leave the top closed until near time to pull and then check with a meat thermometer. If it goes in easily, the meat is done. If it reads around 200 so much the better.
I like simple.

Bob

fishepa

For some reason whenever I do butts they always take about 2 hours/pound.  So that would put that guy around 10 hours.

gerhardk

If it was me and it just did not want to come up in temperature I would have foiled it and poured some apple juice or even part of the beer into the foil, you would be amazed how quick it will get out of the stall.

Gerhard

bhedges1987

I frequently get multiple stalls in mine. 

pgprescott

Fwiw, I don't think the microwave was a good choice either. If pressed for time a combo of foiling and increasing temp is the way to go, IMO. 

logchief

You're right there is always next weekend.  My frustration level would have been up there too.  Every cook is not going to be an out of the park, I've certainly had mine.  
I have a 6 lb'r on right now.  I like to cut them in half and get more bark.

stompbox

I have always wondered this..... Is there an ideal weight to select?

The last two times I have purchased butts around 11~12 pounds and I have found them to be a little bit more dry to me.  I wondered if it is because it takes a little longer to cook, thus the outer portion is drier?

gerhardk

stompbox said:

I have always wondered this..... Is there an ideal weight to select?

The last two times I have purchased butts around 11~12 pounds and I have found them to be a little bit more dry to me.  I wondered if it is because it takes a little longer to cook, thus the outer portion is drier?

I think pulled pork is dry and overcooked no matter how you look at it but the melting of the connective tissue lubricates your mouth giving it the sensation that you have moist meat.  I like pulled pork but I know that anything cooked to 200ºF is over cooked and dry.  The same thing goes for brisket.  In my experience you tend to get more consistent results with a larger piece of meat but that may just be me.

Gerhard

GregW

gerhardk said:

stompbox said:

I have always wondered this..... Is there an ideal weight to select?

The last two times I have purchased butts around 11~12 pounds and I have found them to be a little bit more dry to me.  I wondered if it is because it takes a little longer to cook, thus the outer portion is drier?

I think pulled pork is dry and overcooked no matter how you look at it but the melting of the connective tissue lubricates your mouth giving it the sensation that you have moist meat.  I like pulled pork but I know that anything cooked to 200ºF is over cooked and dry.  The same thing goes for brisket.  In my experience you tend to get more consistent results with a larger piece of meat but that may just be me.

Gerhard

What I don't care for is pulled pork with a mushy texture. I normally remove from the egg at 200. I think I'm going to try 192 next time.
I don't know if this will prevent the mushy texture.
Anyone have any thoughts on how to improve the texture?

blasting

GregW said: Anyone have any thoughts on how to improve the texture?

I don't care for the texture of shredded.  I like the texture better when I break it apart by hand, leaving varied sized pieces.