Berkshire Pork Shoulder Cooking Advice

GuinnessGuy

Hello,

I've made probably a dozen Boston butts on the egg, always in the 8-10 pound range. I put rub on them the night before and smoke them at 230-250 for 18-20 hours (until I hit 185-190 internal temp). This always produces egg-celent results. Recently I got a 4lb bone-in pork shoulder roast from a locally raised organic Berkshire hog. My question is, do I follow the same procedure and look for the same temps (obviously a 4lb roast will hit those temps much faster than a 10lb one) or do I need a totally different approach for this much smaller cut?

Thanks!
Jeff

Misippi Egger

My guess would be to cook it the same, just allowing for a shorter cook.

Buster Dog BBQ

I'm pretty sure the roast won't pull. You may just want to cook it like a loin.

GuinnessGuy

Really? Why woudn't it pull if cooked long enough? It's a pork shoulder roast, that's what a Boston butt is right?

milesofsmiles

Yes, sorta. I have cooked both side x side. IMO the butt pulled and tasted better than the shoulder. Same part of the hog two styles of meat. Smiles to all.

gdenby

The Berkshire will have a higher fat content, so maybe the smaller piece will not dry out during the low temp cook.

I have cooked organic hog, but not Berkshire. The flesh tends to be firmer than usual. I suppose that that is because the animal got somewhat more exercise and/or was a little older. It pulled fairly well, but took longer than usual. I suppose that if the 4 lb. piece is getting dry, you might settle for sliced or chopped pork.

Cactus Doug

Cook it as you would a normal butt. That type of heritage pig should have more fat through the meat than modern pig breeds. It should cook up really nice.

Buster Dog BBQ

just make sure you don't have a sirloin roast. 4lb is pretty small for a butt.

The only reason I say this is on other forums guys who had that size thought they had a butt and it turned out to be sirloin roast.

GuinnessGuy

Ok, good to know. The farmer referred to it as a "shoulder roast (butt)"... So based on that I was assuming "shoulder roast" and "butt" were the same thing... I guess I'll give it a go and see what happens

Desert Oasis Woman

Jeff, when your cook is finished, and you have savored the Berkshire pork, please describe the taste(s) in full, languish, and tantilizing verbage as I've really been dying to try some of it :woohoo: but have not been close enough to any source to purchase any....and hope to sell the hubby on perhaps some mail order Bershire pork if you can help "sell" him :evil:
thanks

GuinnessGuy

Sounds like a noble task for me to undertake! I most likely won't be doing it until next week, but I will definitely report back. From what other locals have told me, pretty much every cut from a Berkshire hog is far richer than the equivalent cut that most are used to. A few have indicated that they could never get their kids to eat pork chops before, for example, but with the Berkshire chops the kids eat them like candy. I guess we'll see. This butt cost me $5.50/lb instead of the normal $1.99/lb that I had been paying. Obviously organic and low production will raise the costs, hopefully the taste will be at least as good if not better.

hornhonk

Kari, Central Market has it! :evil: :woohoo: Want some?

eenie meenie

Jeff, I would love to see pictures of your cook. I really like heritage pork and am very interested in how it comes out. Lucky you.

Desert Oasis Woman

does a pig poke????
YEA!!

Car Wash Mike

IMHO Kari. It is so overrated. But I only spent 20 years in the grocery bix, and my dad 50 in the meat packing industry/grocery biz.
Mike

hornhonk

If you want some, email me.

GuinnessGuy

Mike, only 70 years of combined experience and you think that qualifies you to post opinions on the internet?? :laugh:

To be 100% honest with everyone, I didn't seek it out because it was Berkshire, but rather because it was locally raised and processed at a small facility where I can talk to the butchers and feel good about the entire process start to finish. For good or bad, I dug in to the factory farming system several months ago and was appalled by what I found on so many levels (treatment of animals, treatments of workers, sanitary conditions, etc.). As a result I stopped eating all meat, dairy and eggs overnight. Not a lot of fun for somebody with a new Egg that LOVES BBQ. Convinced that there must be some place I could buy food that I was comfortable with I started talking to local ranchers at farmer's markets and food co-ops. I now have a source for grass fed beef, heritage turkeys, lamb, raw milk and cheese and most recently pork. It happens to be Berkshire pork, but honestly I had never even heard of that breed before. I'm just hopeful that it tastes as good as what I'm used to. If it's "way better" then that's an added bonus, but my real reason for getting to this point is what I stated above. So anyway, I hope I don't sound like I'm preaching, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't coming off like "oh I've got this fancy-pants pork, you unfortunate people with your grocery store cuts, how do you live??" I think it's real easy to get caught up in believing the hype on any product that costs you a lot more than something else. You naturally want to believe that you got something extra for your money. But I assure you all I will give a completely unbiased review of the flavor aspects of this cut. We'll get to the bottom of this debate :silly:
Jeff

Buster Dog BBQ

Two years ago I cooked Wagu brisket and Bershire pork butts for my competition meat. Last year I did not and scored much better. The pork was ok and seemed to cook similar to the regular pork. The taste was a little different but not enough to justify the cost. I did not like the bershire ribs as much as the pork.

Desert Oasis Woman

:unsure: I read a review in a food mag last year and it sounded like the Berkshire breed was full of flavor that our modern food industry has bred out in the name of gettem fat and out.
What, in particular, do you not care for in this breed?
thanks

GuinnessGuy

I finally got around to making this on Saturday, so as promised here are my results.

First, the cut of the meat was quite different than what I was used to. Normally I was working with a 9-10lb Boston butt that had a layer of fat across the whole top. The dimensions of this butt would be roughly 10" x 10" x 5" with the fat on a 10" x 10" side. For the Berkshire butt (which was not referred to as a Boston butt, but rather a "shoulder roast/butt) the dimensions were more like 5" x 10" x 2.5" and the total weight was 4lbs. The most visible fat (not wall-to-wall like the other butt though) was found on the 10" x 2.5" side which makes me think that this was almost a cross section of the kind of butt I would normally make, not a complete butt that was just smaller. Sorry for not having any pics, Saturday was quite hectic and I was lucky to be able to do the cook at all.

I smoked the butt for around 8 hours until the internal temps hit 180. Normally my butts plateau at 173, this time it was around 165. This is the first time I've ever seen the meat temps drop during a plateau. The got to 165, then held, then slowly went back to 159, then held, then slowly started climbing again until 180. I let it rest for about 45 minutes after coming off.

I took my two big "pullin' forks" and proceeded to easily shred. No luck. Dang, I was really having to PULL this pork. Normally it just falls apart with ease. There were a few pockets that did pull like normal, but I'd say 70% of the butt take much more effort. In some cases I would just break off golfball-sized chunks and then chop them with a knife. Normally the bone just pulls out with ease, completely free of any meat. This time it had to be pulled away from the connecting meat with a lot of effort. Now what I'm describing might make it sound like the meat was dry and tough. It definitely was not. Just a different consistency than what I normally get. Every section had a nice amount of moisture though, every bite will be eaten for sure.

As far as the flavor. Well, I wouldn't say it was life-changing or anything. It *did* seem to have more of a smoky flavor that I normally get. And perhaps a bit "richer" as well. Not rich like fatty, just more flavor. Almost like the difference between eating salami and a plain pork chop. The salami just seems "heavier". Maybe that is the fat, lol. I'm not very good at explaining these things so I'm sorry if this all sounds like nonsense.

The bottom line is, I'd call it a draw honestly. What I gave up in super-tender pull-apart texture I *think* I gained in flavor. But is that worth the trade? Probably not. The real thing that I don't know, and the reason why this isn't really a fair comparison is what kind of roast this really was. To truly make the comparison fair I'd have to have the exact same cut of similar weight and smoke the two at the same time, same conditions. THEN we'd have a cook-off. As it turns out, all I can say is "tasted really good" but that's exactly what I've always said about the regular pork. I no longer eat any meat from factory farms, so going forward I will continue to experiment with more cuts from these animals. Hopefully I'll move up to getting a half or whole hog at some point so then I can make sure that I can a real Boston butt to try out.