Hey Fishlessman -- direct butt cook

Fidel

After your post the other day I went to searching the archives and found these photos from a couple years ago. My platesetter was busted at the time and I want some BBQ so I did a butt direct on the grid. You can see where I had cooked it fat down for most of the cook and then flipped it toward the end. I really don't remember why, but the grill marks are easy to see.

From my best recollection it cooked faster than normal and the bark was a little tougher - but all in all still pretty good BBQ.







Hope this helps you a little.

fishlessman

thanks for the post, looks as good as any other butt ive seen, and i like the bark to be chewy so this should work out well. picked up the butt this morning, will cook it sometime over the weekend, maybe tonight

AZRP

When I cooked shoulders direct, I would mop and turn them every 30-60 minutes. Here is the recipe for the mop, my recollection is that it made a much better tasting bark than I've gotten from rubs and indirect cooking. -RP

½ gal vinegar
1 qt water
3 T black pepper
3 T salt
3 T sugar
½ T hot sauce
½ stick butter
1 lemon

Bring to a boil

Grandpas Grub

Looking forward to hearing & seeing the results

GG

Grandpas Grub

Very nice looking cook. Thanks for digging those up.

GG

fishlessman

i might just use that, i was thinking i should not use a rub loaded with sugar, maybe go real light with a rub, or just salt and pepper and baste.

AZRP

I never used a rub, just the mop. BTW, I just edited that recipe, I forgot that I would also slice a lemon and cook it with the mop. -RP

thirdeye

I must have missed the earlier thread on this.....Hope this info is not a repeat. My drums are direct cookers, but very raised, like 30" from the firebox, but I liked the flavor so much I have tried quite a few things raised direct in the Egg. I use an extender ring, then the grate then the BGE grate extender. Mostly prime rib, chuckies, tri-tip all with good results. So, I'll be waiting on the results on the butt also.

Like Fidel mentioned, you will get some stripes in the meat at first, and turning is necessary during the cook. The mop Randy mentioned is a good one. Also don't worry about the white smoke you will see during the cook, that's from the flavor bombs of fat that sweats out & drips on the coals.

mkc

I've got mine on today. 8.23 lbs and bone in. Scored the fat cap. Rubbed with yellow mustard and Dizzy Dust. Injected with apple juice.

Over a drip pan, around 250 with some apple, pecan, and cherry. I've been flipping every 60 minutes and dousing with apple juice and mustard (basically, I poured apple juice into the empty French's container and have been using that as a "mop".

We're only 7 1/2 hours in so far. Will start probing for temp after 8 so I can pull it at 200.

No signs of drying out at this point.

Smells DIVINE and I noticed the neighbor is sitting in his screen porch, probably drooling on his newspaper...

Michelle

mkc

Here's the update on yesterday's "direct" butt.

Took about 16 hours at 250-275. Had a drip pan of water/apple juice on the grate then the butt on the raised grid. Turned and mopped every hour.

The plateau at 165 lasted forever. Given it was an 8.23 lb butt, I'd say using the drip pan with liquid made it almost like an indirect cook in terms of time (compared to my previous experience).

We found the meat to be much drier than previous indirect cooks, as someone suggested it might be. I'm wondering if the hourly egg opening and butt flipping caused this or if it just wasn't as good a butt (it wasn't as flavorful, either). Given the time and result, I don't think I'd try direct again.

The butt will be resuscitated with some carmelized onions, garlic, Hatch chiles, and beer tomorrow when it becomes a vat of carnitas.

Michelle