Labor Day Pork Butt

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kandl

Smoking Fanatic
Original poster
Well this is my second one and it did not turn out near as good as the first one.  I was preoccupied with the UDS and some other jobs around the yard and didn't watch the temp as close on this smoke.
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  Its still got great flavor but It never would get up to 200.  I pulled it at 195 and foiled it and stuck it in the cooler for a few hours.  When I got it out it was a little dry and tough.  Oh well I'm still eating good for a few days. Lesson learned, Don't neglect your meat...
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Yes, I thought about that after the fact, I need to remind myself to do that tonight before I use it again.  I'm just using a cheap digital thermometer but it has a calibration screw on the side..  Wanting to get a maverick soon.
 
On your next one try this.
Put a pan under the butt or just stick it in the pan. That way you catch all the great juice. Then when its all done defat the juice and pour it back over the pulled pork.
To defat the juice just put the juice in container stick it in frigerator for a few hours. the fat will go to the top. .
 
I had something similar happen to me once on a pork butt.  I think if you are going to foil it you need to pull the trigger on that sooner than an IT of 195.  If it stalls at 195 I think you are better off to just pull it rather than keep going.  I wish I had done that when this exact thing happened to me.

Still, it was an OK hunka meat.  Just needed a bit of sauce and you're good to go! :)

I've followed Jeff's directions on this site once for pork butt, and a slightly different but similar one -- basically smoking to ~160 then foiling and going to 204-206 -- and it has worked perfectly both times. 

When I go to foil I also put some liquid in there with the butt.  Last few times I have put beer in, but I think next time I am going to try apple juice.
 
When I pulled it at 195 and wrapped it I put it in a cooler to rest I didn't place it back in the heat.  I also gave it some Apple juice/cider vinegar spray when I wrapped it.  Same way i did the last one.  Only thing I can think of (other than every piece of meat can be different) is that I let the temp wander a little too much on this run because I was doing other things at the same time.   I'm hoping that moving to the UDS instead of trying to smoke with my charcoal grill will eliminate most of the hassle of babysitting that I have been doing.
 
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