Tough bark on butt.

wbradking

Hi everyone, I'm in need of some pulled pork help.  I did a butt this morning...put it on at 7:15 AM and let it ride at 275* - 300* range raised indirect until 6:30 PM this evening.  Rubbed with a home made rub, no spritzing, no foiling, apple chunks for smoke.  It's a rub originally designed for salmon, but today I tried it on the butt: 1 part brown sugar, 1 part paprika, 1/3 part cinnamon, 2/3 part thyme, 1/3 part dried orange peel, 1/3 part salt.  Temp was 199*-203* depending on where it was probed and it felt done. The internal meat was moist and tender but the bark was very tough.  It almost had the consistency of beef jerky.

Could it be that the brown sugar over caramelized and made things tough?  It didn't taste burned.  Could spritzing with apple juice or cider vinegar helped?  What about foiling?

Thanks for the help.

--Brad

Dyal_SC

Sounds like you've figured it out already.  Too much sugar can do that.  You can eyeball the bark when it's getting to the plateau stage, then determine if you need to foil it or not.  

cheeaa

Not sure but I had this same thing happen on a butt I did recently. I didn't change anything i normally do and I only use spog for seasoning. It was weird. 

I saved it though by not pulling it and reheating the whole thing the next day in a foiled pan with apple juice. The bark got a little moister and it was good again

DMW

Was it a boneless butt? I have had that happen on boneless butts on the smaller bits that kind of hang out from where the bone was cut out.

bgeaddikt

I would say the sugar started charring and burning and drying out the meat, hence the jerky. Not foiling or spritzing also prevented retention of moisture or adding liquids to the butt. I used a burger seasoning that was heavy on sugar and it crisped up the meat too well.

fishindoc

Get the bark to where you want it..typically internal temp about 165 then wrap.  That allows you to incorporate your bark into your pulled.  Imho

wbradking

@DMW it was bone-in but the jerky feel was all over.

Thanks guys.  I'm going with the brown sugar theory and will probably wrap it next time at the plateau and see what happens.

--Brad

JethroVA

I'm going to poop on the sugar theory. The infamous Coffee Rub heavily favored here is my go-to rub and has a lot of brown sugar (1/2 cup out of total of 2and 1/4 cups = 22% sugar.) I've never had a tough bark situation although I do a mayonnaise coating first.  @wbradking recipe above is 27% sugar if my math is correct.  I really don't think that 5% extra sugar is the fault.  My theory is the 11+ hours at 275-300.   I do turbo in the low 300s in about 7-8 hours. It dried out.  

wbradking

@JethroVA  Good point about drying out.... turbo next time.  Or mayo coating.  Or a bacon wrap.  Or a turbo-mayo-bacon wrap.  Hmmmm....

northGAcock

What's wrong with jerky?

wbradking

I love jerky, but not on a sandwich. 

fishlessman

if you dont like the heavy bark, start with a piece with a heavy fat cap to protect the meat, tent with foil when the color appeals to you, use just a little rub and keep cooking til done. myself, i like a heavy chewy bark, i trim all the fat off before cooking, use three times the rub as most, and never use foil