# Shoulder or Butt Which Cut is Best For Pulled Pork?    My Conclusion



## tom c (Dec 10, 2011)

Being that I'm from Missouri I needed to see for myself.


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## roller (Dec 10, 2011)




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## SmokinAl (Dec 10, 2011)

Good start Tom. I think you'll find you prefer the butt.


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## frosty (Dec 10, 2011)

What Al said!


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## tom c (Dec 10, 2011)

Looking good @ 2 hours.


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## tom c (Dec 10, 2011)

@ 3 hours













Lunch


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## SmokinAl (Dec 10, 2011)

Lunch looks good! It's nice that both pieces of meat are cooking at the same speed. I love it when that happens.


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## raptor700 (Dec 10, 2011)

Looking good Tom

I prefer the butt for pulled pork also.


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## tom c (Dec 10, 2011)

SmokinAl said:


> It's nice that both pieces of meat are cooking at the same speed. I love it when that happens.


They are staying within 2 degrees so far.

@ 6 hours 150.


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## mballi3011 (Dec 10, 2011)

I pefer the butts but I have smoked a butt load of shoulders too.


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## tom c (Dec 10, 2011)

@ 7 hours IT156


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## tom c (Dec 10, 2011)

@9 hours IT 165


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## raptor700 (Dec 10, 2011)

Interesting to see how they do when they hit the stall

Looking good


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## ellymae (Dec 10, 2011)

We like shoulders - used to cut the skin off, now we leave it on and put it in the Egg skin down - .


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## tom c (Dec 10, 2011)

Both are in the cooler, they hit 200 within 20 mins of each other.


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## tom c (Dec 11, 2011)

My conclusions are they are both delicious.

  

They both took the almost same time to cook, both were just over 8 pounds, the IT stay within 2 degrees until I foiled then. I foiled the shoulder first and it finished 20 mins faster. 

  

After pulling and removing the remaining fat they were both moist and tender.

  

Shoulder, the meat is leaner, with multiple bones with cartilage.

  

Butt, heavily fat marbled, with one bone. Needed to spend more time removing extra fat when pulling.

  

If I was doing a blind taste test I couldn't tell the difference.

  

  

  

Shoulder

  







Butt







Shoulder







Butt







Shoulder







Butt







Without Sauce







With Sauce


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## owlcreeksmoker4 (Dec 11, 2011)

both look delicious


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## tom c (Dec 12, 2011)

Tom C said:


> Shoulder, the meat is leaner,
> 
> 
> 
> Butt, heavily fat marbled,


Those are the only real different there is. Because the shoulder is leaner if you try to cook it fast you are going dry it out. The butt because it is heavily fat marbled is very forgiving. I have cook them with high heat and have them cook in 4 hour for slicing and low and slow for 12 hour for pulling either way they are both delicious.


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## bigcase (Dec 12, 2011)

That is some great looking pp, nice work and excellent experiment.


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## scarbelly (Dec 12, 2011)

I like them both and you just proved that there is no a lot of difference. I do like the butt having less bones to deal with but both mighty tasty.


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## SmokinAl (Dec 12, 2011)

OK Tom, So what is the conclusion? If you are going to make PP, what are you going to buy?


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## papagreer (Dec 12, 2011)

Nice looking PP! I prefer the butt but my dog likes the shoulder cause she gets more bone to chew on 
	

	
	
		
		



		
			






Chris


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## tom c (Dec 12, 2011)

SmokinAl said:


> OK Tom, So what is the conclusion? If you are going to make PP, what are you going to buy?




Only because the cost is 50 cents less per pound I will go with Shoulders, well maybe. Even cost is hard to decide because if you look at the pics you can see I ended up with pulled pork from the butt.


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## jmonty580 (Dec 12, 2011)

Both looks very good to me!! I've only done shoulders because thats what they have at costco.  Looks like i'm not missing out on anything since they both look the same.


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