Injections for Pork Butts? Yes or No?

[krubby]

OK, so I am doing 3 bone in pork butts for super bowl tomorrow.  all of them around the 8.5-8.8 lb. range.

Question - Do you usually do, or recommend, an injection of some sorts in addition to the rub?  Jeff's book does not mention one, the Weber Smoke book does.  They recommend brown sugar, apple juice, kosher salt Worchester sauce mix (although I might leave the salt out).

I have a nice steel injector and I don't mind talking the 10-15 minutes to do it, I am just more wondering of the benefits and if it helps, doesn't do that much etc.  Side note - I am still kind of new to this, so more trying to learn than anything.

PS I have already done one pork butt, I did not do an injection that time.  But still open to ideas.

 

[mdboatbum]

Not really necessary. Plus there is the safety concern over injecting a large piece of meat that's going to cook for many hours. It's a small risk, but the possibility exists of pushing surface bacteria into the meat where it can, given the proper circumstances, grow and cause a fairly nasty case of food poisoning.

 

[bear55]

I never inject my butts, I simply do not find it necessary for flavor.

Richard

 

[krubby]

I searched amazingribs.com and he had the same comments, especially around how it does not add that much flavor to it anyway.

I think I'll just skip it for both the reasons mentioned above.