Curious about the obsession with 200 degree temp for pork butt

Unknown

I am new to the BGE and to smoking in general, but my experience with smoking a Boston butt to 195 - 200 degrees was that it was pretty dry. I have been pulling them off at 185 - 190 and find them to be perfect, very easy to pull and very moist.[p]Am I missing something in my inexperienced approach?

Unknown

Bulldawg Bob, doesn't sound like your missing anything, your objective was accomplished and you can't beat a moist, pullable butt, LOL. Seriously, I just bet it's a temp calibration thang, and besides if you pull at 190 and wrap in foil like most do it will reach 195 at least and probably will not wrapped.

ChefDBA

Bulldawg Bob,
Well with Butt you're not cooking it until it's done, you're cooking it until it's tender and all of the connective tissue has released it's gelatin. The meat is actually dry as a bone at 200 degrees, but it's covered in sopping good Jell-O so nobody notices. 200 is just a benchmark, you might get it to 210 or it might be 190, after about 165 the meat doesn't care, it's all about the connective tissue then.

Wise One

Bulldawg Bob, drbbq had quite an elequent dissertation on cooking pork sometime back. Baically, what I took away from it was that success was not in reaching 200 degrees but the journey to reaching 200 degrees. Pork butts have a lot of fat throughout that tends to break down into a liquid somewhere in the 165-180 range. The success to cooking pork is to leave it as long as possible in the 165-180 range. By cooking to 200 degrees you assur eyoru self that you have maximized your time in that range. Cooking to 195 doe sit as well. The big thing is to not to jet through that range. You can cook at 300 and get to 200 or 195 just as well. However, the amount of time spent in the 165-180- range is not nearly as long as if you cooked at a lower temperature (say 225).[p]In short - if you doing 190 or 195 or 200, you should be fine as long as you let it languish for a while in the 165-180 range.

jwitheld

Bulldawg Bob,
the ceramics allow us to cook to 200 and still retain the moistness

Unknown

Wise One,
Interesting points, and I have been pretty committed to keeping it on the plateau for as long as possible. That's probably why it still tastes good at my lower temps.[p]Thanks for the input!

Gene

Bulldawg Bob,
I think you can keep the Pork in the 175 or any other range you choose, for as long as you like with tempture regulation. I do it with the Guru and have goten pullable pork without going to 195, just keeping it at 180 or so a long time.

Unknown

My understanding was that at 200 plus, the gelatin (I thought it was collagen)melted from the fat layer on top and soaked the meat. It has worked well for me, for what it's worth.