The Pork Butt (Father’s Day)

I think I’m a year into this ForensicBBQ thing, and I haven’t posted one pork butt. This was completely mind-blowing to me. While it’s true, I haven’t posted everything I’ve ever cooked – but a pork butt?? The BBQ staple? Embarrassing.

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Recipe

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Let’s get going – this was going to be a busy weekend. Anytime I do an overnight cook – even with the simplicity of a RecTeq pellet smoker – I don’t sleep well. Maybe it’s the firefighter in me that hates the idea of an open flame near the house, I don’t know. This weekend was no exception: I slept in 1-2 hour bursts, waking up in a moderate panic thinking either the house is burning or the pork is ruined (equally devastating).

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The Prep Table

Maybe this I why I have never done a pork butt post – there’s no prep! Add seasoning, add to grill. That’s about it. It’s low-and-slow – it’s the process that makes this thing shine.

I don’t THINK I need to mention it anymore, but if it’s your first time here – I don’t use mustard. I sure as hell ain’t going to slather this beauty. “But it cooks out and you won’t taste it”. But I KNOW it. And that’s enough for me. I took this 8-ish pounder out of the fridge and left it out for a little bit. I don’t use a binder, I let the meat take on the seasoning. Using my savory FINE SWINE PORK RUB, I coated the meat on all sides.

Also, I score the fat cap roughly 1/4″ in a cross pattern to let that rub get in there. Give it a good dusting on the top, all sides and wait 5 minutes. Let it get that glisten – that sludgey syrupy look – and you know the seasoning took. Flip it over and do the same.

I was aiming for a 3pm dinner. I put this on around 9:30p-10:00p. I don’t exactly remember, but it was around there. That gives me a a good 16ish hour window to put as much smoke on this thing and provide for a nice even cook. RecTeq Pellet Smokers – gotta love em – but you’re not getting that stick smoker/charcoal flavor. If anyone tells you differently, they’re lying. That being said – RecTeq’s “LO” setting.. or XTREME SMOKE.. puts my smoker at 180 and keeps it there. That’s what we’re doing. (Yes, we need this meat over 195 – so we’ll up the temp later… we’re playing with the smoke right now).

The RecTeq holds 40lbs of pellets. That’s about 40 hours of uninterrupted cooking. I mix my cooking woods nearly every cook – so I hate filling it. But I wanted to get as close as possible to running it dry after I’m done. Two partitions in the hopper means half cherry, half apple.

After sliding the toggle on my smartphone to start the smoker, dialing it down to 180 – I let it sit there for a little bit and then it was time to get smoking. Prep work is over – butt rubbed and smoker hot.

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The Process

I was doing a pork butt for both mine and my wife’s family – it was going to be plenty. But my father wanted those Blackstone Tacos again. So I was going to do a pound of ground beef, plus some pulled pork tacos too for whoever wanted one. 24-pack of shells = 12 tacos – that should be enough (it wasn’t).

Throw a probe in there (away from the bone) and shut the lid. My RecTeq probes are EXACTLY 10 degrees off. Both of them. I’ve requested a number of times for an in-app adjustment – like I think InkBird allows for (that I never use) – but the convenience of the RecTeq app to show everything allows me to deal with the discrepancy. I’ve tested the probes with two different Thermapens – and it’s precisely 10 degrees under what it shows.

So I cooked this at 180 degrees overnight. I mentioned I don’t sleep well during these, so every 1-2 hours, I was up – checking the hopper (that didn’t move much) – the temperature that was always RecTeq steady – never an issue, but I check anyway. Somewhere around 6-7am (8ish hours, about halfway through or so) – I upped the temperature to the tried-and-true 225.

I let it stay at 225 until it was about 2-3 hours until feeding time. This was more about me trying to get the timing right than anything. Recap: 180 for 8 hours, 225 for probably another 5, and then I upped it to 260ish when it got close to 1pm-ish. (I’m sorry for all the about, -ish, ‘or-so’ that’s in this post. It’s what I do.). I wanted the most smoke (180 degrees) for the longest time. Obviously had to raise the temp so the meat would get there – and then it’s just playing with the temp and time.

It was time to go. Guests were coming in an hour and I had the timing SPOT ON. You can say it wasn’t spot-on because of the temperature fluctuation – but I nailed it. The close-up of the bark was necessary so you can see that complexity.

Put this in a half-pan, covered it with foil and wrapped tight. Wrapped it up in a towel and placed it in a cooler for safekeeping until it was time to pull. I know you want to see the pictures – let’s go!

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The Result

We went full service for this one. Nothing special with the corn – soaked for an hour, some were seasoned, and placed on the smoker at 225 for an hour. Complements-a-plenty, but wasn’t anything special – not like that butt. The habanero dusted cob was really overpowering hot (go figure). But I was excited to use by habanero dust.

The toolbox was emptied for this one. A little glimpse into the behind-the-scenes. Clockwise starting at 9:00 – you can see my tower of pellets and the pork-butt ready to pull. Had the ground beef ready for FatherBBQ- with some chopped onions. The cast-iron and jar will be for an upcoming post (spoiler alert: bacon spread). My taco seasoning, cajun seasoning, Tajin, shells, enchilada sauce, and pork-butt finishing sauce round out the table. And a beer.

Yes, we went all out with salads, veggies, fruit, rolls, coleslaw, pickles, of course my BBQ sauce in the front. MrsForensicBBQ made some rosemary biscuits and salads – she’s killing it. But we rolled out the red carpet for the star of the show. You may have seen this posted on Instagram for my Teaser Thursday post – but check out the finish:

This was a perfect evenly smoked butt. I don’t remember them ever coming out this uniform of a look. It’s simple in the dark color of it’s bark, but the complex texture – I couldn’t wait to get to shredding. Slide the bone out and get to pulling.

Here’s where I failed.

I stopped taking photos. As soon as the shred was done, and dinner was ready – I got to making those tacos. Blackstone tacos are a constant process and I got busy. I know, I failed you all. I took a scoop of the pork and ate as I cooked. I didn’t even put the finishing sauce on there (not necessary, which is a sign of quality – but it’s my signature). By the time everyone was eating and I got back into the kitchen, I was able to sneak ONE picture.

The good news, people ate it up. I was able to get a picture of the taco in there also. But you can see just how juicy the pork was, the beautiful red smoke ever present in the cook – and unsurprising – the bark pieces left over were few. Not surprised that I didn’t any complaints – no one normally does to your face – but I was blessed to hear a ton of compliments. The tacos were a big hit too! The beef were OKAY – but when you make that pulled pork taco – KILLER.

When I was done cooking, I made a mash-up sandwich that had a handful of finishing sauced pork, leftover ground beef, my bacon spread, some raw onion, and a couple pickles. And of course, my BBQ sauce drizzle. It was a pretty epic sandwich, a pretty epic meal, and really spending time with my families was pretty epic in itself. So blessed to have such great families in my life.

Thanks for checking out this rushed post! (I leave a couple weeks between cooks and posts – normally so I can give each cook an appropriately worded post). Would’ve been weird for the Father’s Day post to be mid-late July, I threw up a Father’s Day teaser because I was so happy with the result – so I felt like I had to share this one ASAP.

See you on the next one! -ForensicBBQ

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Recipe