First pork butt in the books.. advice needed

Fired up the ole el cheapo brinkmann for my first long cook. Smoker was fantastic and barely needed tending. This was my biggest concern since this is my third cook on it but it really was fantastic. Now onto the pulled pork.

I rubbed some yellow mustard on it and applied my rub and let it sit overnight. Put it on about 6:30am and it chugged along in the area of 210-230 most of the time on the lower end. about 1:30 it hit the stall for about 2 hours. Finally powered through but took a very long time to get up to 195 internal. Had to throw about a fistful of lump in the smoker that last hour or two which is not bad at all. Probably could have added it in the beginning and would have been fine but im still learning how this thing does on a long cook. it reached 195 between 6:30 and 7pm and then I let it rest until 8 when my wife got home from work. The results were very good but I was a little disappointed. I guess I was expecting crock pot tenderness with the bark and smoke flavor from the smoker. Some parts were very tender but other parts were a little dry. I can't tell if I'm just being overly critical of myself but I'll let the pics do the rest of the talking. Any input or advice would be greatly appreciated. Excuse the junky counter top, I was also watching my 2 month old while the ole lady was at work haha.

1buckie said:

Two things come to mind from your description.....

Did you wrap for the rest?
That can possibly have an effect on parts being dry....

And, were some parts of it a little tough to pull apart?
That Might be an indicator of not quite all the way done.....

Just some thoughts, but it does look pretty dang good from way over here !!!!

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I did not wrap it until I pulled it off the smoker. A lot of advice I read said to leave that part out for your first try so you don't need the crutch.

Hmm they were a little tough to pull apart but they seemed to be towards the ends which I would have thought would be done before the middle. The bark also looked pretty crispy to me so I hadn't given it a thought that it may have needed more time. It did seem to rise in temp a lot quicker that last hour and a half maybe the whole thing wasn't up to 195 internal?

1buckie said:

Yeah, that's what I meant about wrapping....during the resting....it seems to level out the moisture thru the piece a little better doing that.....others may have different experience, but it's worked well for me....

Might help a bit with the extremities staying moist too.......

Try just going by the bone pulling out clean......nothing attached.....that signals that the meat's given up all it's "holding power" & is completely thru to pullable stage......

Still sticking just a little:

Done:

see the bone up in back.....

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Unfortunately the pork shoulder I was able to find was boneless so I couldnt use that as a test method

DaveAlvarado said:

I really hate that wrapping is called a "crutch", it's just a tool like using a water pan or applying a slather before your rub.

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No disrespect intended just going by what it's commonly called. Heck I'm not even against it in anyway just wanted to learn the basics before introducing different tricks.

AlwaysSmokey said:

It looks like it came out good. Don't be too harsh on yourself. I agree about the bone,.. that thing needs to be able to be pulled right out of there (easily) to signal "done". I'll also throw out the fact that I always wrap my butts once I have a nice color on them. To wrap or not to wrap during the smoke is totally up to the cook, but I just always have, and never had a dry or tough butt. :flame:

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I might try it next time and see what happens. I guess when you put that much time into something you want it to blow your socks off. Luckily the package came with 2 butts, I guess one technically being the picnic, so after I finish the leftovers I can give it another whirl.