# Wrapping a pork butt with butcher paper???



## jbellard

hey folks!

Looking for some opinions, know that you have them so let me hear ‘em!

I have cooked numerous pork butts and I’m very happy with the end product. Have wrapped in foil, no wrap and sat butt in aluminum pan. 
I recently got a 1000ft roll of butcher paper from sams and did 3 briskets with it. Came out great!
I am wondering if anyone has wrapped a pork butt in butcher paper before and what the pro’s and con’s might be. 
Cooking it for Easter weekend so just curious. 
Is there too much juice vs a brisket?  
Let me know what you think and thanks for the insight!


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## hillbillyrkstr

Is it the paper with one side coated or just plain paper?


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## jbellard

White Butcher paper. Paper turned brownish after cooking.  No coating. I have already used it to wrap brisket and it worked great!


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## hillbillyrkstr

Nice!

That brisket looks great! Fine job.


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## swinefan

I personally never ever wrap pork butts anymore.  I did it one time and never looked back.  Will it take longer? Absolutely.  The 160 degree stall has killed weaker member of my party who were hungry.  I generally do fat side up now as well to keep the juices rolling down.  If you baste (even just an apple juice mist) a little bit it will never dry out.  The bark is much better. 

Slap that puppy on and let her ride.  She will be just as juicy and succulent, and like I said just baste a little if you are worried about drying out.

Of course the exception is when the wife is yelling at me to get dinner ready so I dutifully wrap in foil for the second half of the cook...


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## jbellard

Thanks guys!


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## hillbillyrkstr

I pretty much do the same thing swinefan but I never baste. I like my bark to much to ever mess with it. The stall can be long but in the end it’s worth it.


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## SmokinAl

I smoke mine in the 270-280 range, no stall, no wrap.
But I do baste them with the pan juice and still get real nice bark!
Al


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## normonster

I either let it ride through the stall (overnight smokes) or I foil wrap. I saw a while back that one of the members here that I respect a lot uses butcher paper to wrap, but I still think it may be slightly defeating the purpose of stopping evaporation. I started getting the best results when I started taking the time to make a perfectly triple folded seal on the foil so that is how I typically do it.

The next step in my pork butt adventures is going to be trying the SV prep cook that has worked so well for me on pulled beef. If I can get my butts smoked and full of flavor in 3-4 hours I'll be a happy man.


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## daricksta

jbellard said:


> hey folks!
> 
> Looking for some opinions, know that you have them so let me hear ‘em!
> 
> I have cooked numerous pork butts and I’m very happy with the end product. Have wrapped in foil, no wrap and sat butt in aluminum pan.
> I recently got a 1000ft roll of butcher paper from sams and did 3 briskets with it. Came out great!
> I am wondering if anyone has wrapped a pork butt in butcher paper before and what the pro’s and con’s might be.
> Cooking it for Easter weekend so just curious.
> Is there too much juice vs a brisket?
> Let me know what you think and thanks for the insight!


I haven't used butcher paper on (what we call out here on the West Coast) a pork shoulder. I've been into smoking naked meats in my MES 30 because so many pitmasters don't wrap their meats in competitions or in their restaurants. I do have butcher paper and will experiment with it again this year. I've only smoked one or two pork shoulder/butts so here's a video of a successful smoke with a porl shoulder/butt wrapped in pink/peach butcher paper. I think I'll wrap a beef brisket in one this year.


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## Rings Я Us

Can wrap with foil if you want.. and then take it out of foil at he the end. Put the meat on a rack in a  low oven for a few. The crust comes back.  It dries. At least when I do it it does.
  Here was smoked pastrami from corned beef. It went in my crock pot after smoking the day before. It sat in the fridge overnight and it steamed in the crock pot 1.5 hrs.
I took it out and Sat it in the oven on 170 for about 15 minutes.  It rested in there 30 minutes more with no heat on..

Results were nice firm bark.


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## myownidaho

Nice looking brisket! I don’t wrap butts anymore.


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## noboundaries

I've gone from wrapper (Who dat Butt) to a solid non-wrapper. I'm also married to the perfect woman. I love bark, she doesn't. Woo HOO!


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## daricksta

Rings Я Us said:


> Can wrap with foil if you want.. and then take it out of foil at he the end. Put the meat on a rack in a  low oven for a few. The crust comes back.  It dries. At least when I do it it does.
> Here was smoked pastrami from corned beef. It went in my crock pot after smoking the day before. It sat in the fridge overnight and it steamed in the crock pot 1.5 hrs.
> I took it out and Sat it in the oven on 170 for about 15 minutes.  It rested in there 30 minutes more with no heat on..
> 
> Results were nice firm bark.
> View attachment 359007
> View attachment 359008
> View attachment 359009


Your pastrami looks great. I'll be making my first try at it this year. I've read up a bit on it. But why smoke it, steam it, and then stick it in the oven? What do those two additional steps do for the finished product?


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## noboundaries

I picked up some butcher paper recently and used it on tri tip. I liked the results, but I was also using a different smoking process than I had been using for decades so I have nothing to compare the result to.

Now a pork butt is a different animal (literally). I just pulled a pork butt out of the freezer to thaw in the fridge. When I smoke it next week, I'm going to let it go all night, unwrapped, at 225F. In the morning when I get up, I'll double wrap it in butcher paper. I'm curious what it might do to the bark, and possibly the color. The bark on my beginning-to-end-of-smoke unwrapped butts is usually black, crunchy, and flavorful.


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## noboundaries

Just took my butt out of the WSM. It was a 9.2 lb butt and an overnight smoke. I loaded the butt on the top grate last night at 6:20 PM. We had some 12-20 mph winds, so it took a bit of vent manipulation to find a steady temp, but about 4 hours after loading the meat I stayed at 228-232F all night long. Guru was set at 220 and didn't come on during the night.

At 6:20 AM this morning the IT of the meat was 165F. I double wrapped the meat in brown butcher paper, opened all vents fully, reset the Guru to 260F, knocked the ash off the briquettes, then enjoyed my morning coffee. An hour later, in a separate pan, I loaded two yellow sweet potatoes, two russet potatoes, and two onions cut in half.

The meat was at 205F at 11:30 AM, a 17.2 hour smoke. My usual rub has a little brown sugar in it, but I used a commercial rub from Cahoots called their "House Blend." Pretty tasty.  It didn't have sugar.

When I took the meat off the smoker to rest, I removed the butcher paper. The bark was dry and firm, but not crispy. I like it! Pics are below.

After 12 hours overnight, getting ready to wrap the meat and turn up the heat.






Double wrapped and ready to finish.






As a side note, I find it fascinating how RO Ridge burns in my smoker. I overload my basket with cold Ridge to about 2-3 inches above the top of the grate. The wood chunks are buried under the charcoal. It pre-heats the wood. Then, for a low temp, 225F smoke, I only add 8 hot briquettes to a dimple I put in the middle of the pile. The picture below is after a 2 hour chamber temp warm-up then 12 hours of smoking. What I find fascinating is how the briquettes burn down then out to the sides. The picture below is just before I knocked the ash down through the grate.






And here is the butt taken off the smoker after 17.2 hours, ready to rest. Nice color. Bark is dry. Dinner will be wonderful tonight! So far I like this butcher paper thing.


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## myownidaho

That turned out great!


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## GATOR240

Nice looking brisket. I believe it was this thread that I saw, that made me go out and by a roll of pink butcher paper just to give it a try and find out for myself.......I know, I know, I used to hear "If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump off too???" I will post results when I try it out.


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## daricksta

Rings Я Us said:


> Can wrap with foil if you want.. and then take it out of foil at he the end. Put the meat on a rack in a  low oven for a few. The crust comes back.  It dries. At least when I do it it does.
> Here was smoked pastrami from corned beef. It went in my crock pot after smoking the day before. It sat in the fridge overnight and it steamed in the crock pot 1.5 hrs.
> I took it out and Sat it in the oven on 170 for about 15 minutes.  It rested in there 30 minutes more with no heat on..
> 
> Results were nice firm bark.
> View attachment 359007
> View attachment 359008
> View attachment 359009


Did you follow a specific pastrami recipe? You did exactly what I plan to do with a corned beef brisket soon. I've read that after it's been smoked the pastrami is boiled and there's a finishing touch after that. I'll have to check the recipe. 
But your pastrami matches exactly what I'm shooting for.


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## daricksta

I wish you'd posted photos of the sliced brisket so I could see what the meat looked like. I know it's only cosmetic but did you get a smoke ring? Your photos show why had I decided to get a charcoal-fired smoker I would've bought a WSM. I went with an electric one since it was my first smoker and I already own a Weber OTS Silver.


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## daricksta

GATOR240 said:


> Nice looking brisket. I believe it was this thread that I saw, that made me go out and by a roll of pink butcher paper just to give it a try and find out for myself.......I know, I know, I used to hear "If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump off too???" I will post results when I try it out.


I bought a large of peach (I think it's peach) butcher paper a couple of years ago but rarely use it.


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## Rings Я Us

daricksta said:


> Your pastrami looks great. I'll be making my first try at it this year. I've read up a bit on it. But why smoke it, steam it, and then stick it in the oven? What do those two additional steps do for the finished product?


Mine was this seasoning recipe. 
https://www.cookingchanneltv.com/recipes/pastrami-spice-blend-3416402

Cates it with mustard then seasoning. Rested in plastic wrap a few hours then smoked as normal. Wrapped at 165 finished to 190 and steamed to probe tender the next day.


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## daricksta

Rings Я Us said:


> Mine was this seasoning recipe.
> https://www.cookingchanneltv.com/recipes/pastrami-spice-blend-3416402
> 
> Cates it with mustard then seasoning. Rested in plastic wrap a few hours then smoked as normal. Wrapped at 165 finished to 190 and steamed to probe tender the next day.


Did you rinse off the old brine first before applying the dry rub?

I'm going to copy/paste the dry rub recipe. I've got two other pastrami recipes that I've saved. My main goal is to replicate the Katz Deli (Brooklyn) pastrami from a close copycat recipe I found.


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## Rings Я Us

Yeah that one in the AmazingRib site is good.  I wanted to use the seeds and toast them and put them in my grinder. It's about the same ingredients.  
I used corned beef I bought on sale at St. Patrick's Day time. I soaked them for about 2 hours before I put the rub on.


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## daricksta

Rings Я Us said:


> Yeah that one in the AmazingRib site is good.  I wanted to use the seeds and toast them and put them in my grinder. It's about the same ingredients.
> I used corned beef I bought on sale at St. Patrick's Day time. I soaked them for about 2 hours before I put the rub on.


I bought the same type of brisket at the same exact time. Yes, I've seen that AR recipe. It's one of the ones I've saved.


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## Rings Я Us

daricksta said:


> I bought the same type of brisket at the same exact time. Yes, I've seen that AR recipe. It's one of the ones I've saved.



Just did pastrami. Was very delicious


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## daricksta

Yum! Is that rye bread and is there Russian dressing inside? In a couple of weeks or so when I try my hand at pastrami, I'll serve it on Russian rye (I prefer it to Jewish rye) with the aforementioned Russian dressing. I do possess Russian heritage so this entire dish is firmly lodged in my DNA. And yes, as in your photo, there must be Kosher dill pickles on the side.


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## Rings Я Us

Ha..  I had thousand island and well drained sour kraut with Swiss.. the bread is an onion rye bread. Smelled great so I tried some. Good stuff.
Will try this next using eye of round and see what happens.


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## daricksta

Eye of round? Sacrilege! Infidel! But thanks for reminding me about the sauerkraut and Swiss cheese. What was I not thinking? And yes, 1000 Island will do very nicely. I can imagine how good that onion rye tasted. And I just found out I confused the two types of rye breads I mentioned. I grew up with Jewish Rye--lighter in color than Russian and with the caraway seeds. I have a right to be confused because I'm Jewish with Russian (among other) ancestry.


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## Rings Я Us

daricksta said:


> Yum! Is that rye bread and is there Russian dressing inside? In a couple of weeks or so when I try my hand at pastrami, I'll serve it on Russian rye (I prefer it to Jewish rye) with the aforementioned Russian dressing. I do possess Russian heritage so this entire dish is firmly lodged in my DNA. And yes, as in your photo, there must be Kosher dill pickles on the side.



I like the seeds also.. I use them sometimes to enhance a recipe . I have a half full bottle of caraway  seed on hand.


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## daricksta

Yep, we have a bottle of caraway seeds in our pantry, too. We've made a point of amassing just about everything we might ever need to cook anything we choose. :)


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## kvhookem

jbellard said:


> hey folks!
> 
> Looking for some opinions, know that you have them so let me hear ‘em!
> 
> I have cooked numerous pork butts and I’m very happy with the end product. Have wrapped in foil, no wrap and sat butt in aluminum pan.
> I recently got a 1000ft roll of butcher paper from sams and did 3 briskets with it. Came out great!
> I am wondering if anyone has wrapped a pork butt in butcher paper before and what the pro’s and con’s might be.
> Cooking it for Easter weekend so just curious.
> Is there too much juice vs a brisket?
> Let me know what you think and thanks for the insight!


I came here for that very answer. I’m using a pit boss pellet smoker & am at the 160 deg stall now. I have spritzed with the apple cider vinegar every couple hours. So no to the wrap with the butcher paper & wait it out?


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