Here's a whole mess of shoulders coming out of the smoker at the Dinosaur Barbecue in Rochester, NY. Notice how the colors of these two 5 pound butts differ. They were rubbed the same and cooked simultaneously at the same temperature with precisely the same amount of wood. The one on the left was cooked on a gas grill set up with a water pan. The other was cooked on a charcoal smoker, a Weber Smokey Mountain, also with a water pan. Both tasted great. The one on the left (gas) had a bit of a sheen and bright pink highlights. It tasted lively, with sexy bacon undertones. The one on the right (charcoal) was dull brown with dark edges. It had a heavier, husky fireplace scent and flavor, more like traditional Southern barbecue. I ended up mixing the two together! Here's a butt ready to be pulled. It has a brown, spicy, and crunchy exterior "bark" from the rub, a deep pink smoke ring with a bacony flavor from a long slow cook in smoke, and a tender, juicy, moist middle. Here's a small butt being pulled apart. The right hand is on the bone extending from the shoulder blade buried in the butt. Here's the blade bone removed from the butt. You can see the shank part at the top protruding from the butt on the left below. If the meat is properly cooked this bone should pull out easily with two fingers and have almost no meat stuck to it.

How the champions do it For home cooks, the easiest thing to do is trim off excess fat and cook the Boston Butt whole. But competition cook Candy Weaver of BBQr's Delight thinks the meat between her fingers, above is the best. She calls it the "Money Muscle", so she prepares her butts a bit oddly. It is a tube shaped muscle that runs across the butt on the surface on the side opposite the blade bone. She goes to the opposite side and just above the blade bone there is a vein of fat and silverskin. She cuts along this seam and removes them. Her butt is then butterflied into three sections with the Money Muscle sticking up. She cooks it standing like this and when it is done she slices the money muscle and pulls the rest. I do not recommend this method for home cooks. Pumping Nowadays, with prize money in the thousands, most of the competitors strive for every edge they can get and many of them inject their butts with a moisturizer/flavorizer/tenderizer like Butcher BBQ Pork Injection. I've used it a few times, and it works as advertised, but most of the time I don't bother. Pork butt is usually tender enough, juicy enough, and tasty enough without the addition of hydrolyzed vegetable protein, MSG, sodium phosphate, yeast extract, and maltodextrin. But if your butt is in competition, you should test it.

Cooking more than one large hunk o meat I frequently get asked how to handle cooking two shoulders (or more) or a shoulder and a brisket, or a shoulder, brisket, ribs, and a muskrat. The answer is here, in my article on Cooking More Than One Large Hunk 'O Meat.

Cook today, serve tomorrow So you're going to the Grandma's on Saturday, but you don't want to spend the day cooking. You can do it, but it will not be as good as fresh. You will be serving leftovers. Cook your pork on Friday. Cook it all the way until done. Place in a pan like the one above, pull it (Bear Paws are great for this job), splash with a bit of apple juice, and or water, cover tightly with foil, and chill. Don't chill a whole butt. It will take hours to warm through and you don't want to reheat at high temps. On Saturday, put the covered pan in a cooler and head over the river and through the woods. About 90 minutes before dinner put the covered pan in an oven and reheat at 225-250°F until warm. Build your sammiches and top with warm sauce. Don't forget to let me know what time to be there.

With smoke woven through shards of moist meat, potent bits of strongly seasoned crust mixed in, and a gentle splash of barbecue sauce, pulled pork is perfect for feeding large crowds, especially because it is cheap.

Pulled pork is a great place for the beginner to start experimenting with smoke cooking. It is made from big clod of meat that is a lot more forgiving than something like ribs. And you can do it right on practically any grill with a lid.

Pork shoulder is a hunk of meat that is laced with flavorful fat and connective tissue. That's the story of the origin of Southern barbecue. A cheap cut of meat that the slave owners didn't want, that, as the slaves discovered, when cooked low and slow, when the fat and collagens melt, the muscle fibers are made tender, moist, and succulent. Like buttah. And the process, which can take 8 to 12 hours or more, is the quintessence of Southern smoke roasting. Lazy, slow, easy, fragrant. You set up a lawn chair, sip a cup of coffee as you put the meat on in the morning, as the sun gets high, you switch to cool refreshing beer, mid-day a mint julep refreshes the palate, and as it approaches doneness, with the sun waning, you switch to straight Bourbon.

A full shoulder can weigh 8 to 20 pounds and has two halves, the "picnic ham" and the "Boston butt". The picnic ham, runs from the shoulder socket through to the elbow. A picnic ham is not a true ham. Hams come from the rear legs only. The picnic usually weighs from 4 to 12 pounds.

The top half of the shoulder, from the the dorsal of the animal near the spine through the shoulder blade, has too many names: Boston butt, pork butt, butt, shoulder butt, shoulder roast, country roast, and the shoulder blade roast. Calling it a butt may seem ironic because it comes from the front of the hog. No ifs ands or butts, it makes the best sandwich meat on the hog.

Look for Berkshire. Berkshire hogs are a breed that became scarce when the pork promoters moved to leaner pork to promote it as "the other white meat". Berkshires (and Duroc and other "heritage" breeds) tend to have darker, fattier, and more flavorful meat. The best pulled pork I ever had was a Berkshire served without sauce by Barry Sorkin of Smoque BBQ in Chicago. It looked like turkey dark meat and was incredibly tender and flavorful. It is not on their menu yet because it is expensive, but one can hope.

Why is it called a butt? Some say that because, when trimmed, the butt is barrel shaped, and barrels were often called butts by English wine merchants. Others say that they are called butts because they were shipped in barrels. A reader has suggested that a butt is a name for a joint in woodworking, and the shoulder is a joint area. One can only speculate why it is called the Boston butt, but my friends in New York have offered some unkind suggestions.

Butts can weigh from 4 to 14 pounds and they usually have shoulder blade bones in them although some butchers remove the bones and sell "boneless butts". There is some evidence that the bone adds flavor, so I buy bone-in butts. Butts are often are tied with string because they fall apart easily. It is not unusual to find partial butts in the 4 to 5 pound range. These small cuts are especially nice because they cook more quickly and there is a lot of the crispy, crusty surface, called bark, or Mrs. Brown by aficionados.

How much do you need? There is significant shrinkage and waste in the form of bone and globs of fat you discard when pulling. Count on about 30% loss, and if there is less, then you'll have leftovers. How much per person? That depends on the gender, age, time of day, what else is being served, and amount of alcohol present. If you are serving chicken, hot dogs, brats, and burgers as well as pulled pork, you will need less. If you are only serving pulled pork you need more. I usually plan on 1/2 pound per person on average (remember there is shrinkage, up to 20%), and look forward to leftovers. I freeze leftovers in two person portions in zipper bags and they have rescued many a Tuesday night when we don't feel like cooking from scratch.

Cooking for a crowd? Click here for an article about how to adjust cooking time, if at all, if you are cooking several butts at once.

Important warnings

Pork shoulder is very forgiving and can take a wide range of heats without serious damage, so it is the perfect place to start if you want experiment with Southern style low and slow smoked meat. But butt it is utterly unpredictable. Sometimes it can be done in 1.5 hours per pound, and sometimes it takes 2 hours per pound. This is flesh, not widgets, and one hog is different than another. But there are some rules of thumb that will help you master it.

And then there is the most scary part of the cook: The Stall. The temp will rise steadily to about 150°F and slow down for a looooonnnng while as moisture moves to the surface and evaporates. It might hold between 150 and 160°F for up to 5 hours. Don't panic and don't crank the heat. Be patient. Click here for more about the stall, why it happens, and how to beat it.

Because of the stall, it is hard to predict exactly how long it will take to cook. So plan on 2 hours per pound at 225°F, and if it finishes early, wrap it in foil and pop it in the kitchen oven at about 170°F or in a faux Cambro, which is not much more than a beer cooler (click the link).

And one more thing: You absolutely positively cannot rely on bi-metal dial thermometers. If you are not monitoring your cooker with a good digital oven thermometer, and if you are not monitoring the meat with a good digital leave-in thermometer so you don't have to pop the lid to check the temp, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. Click here to read my buyer's guide to thermometers.

Pulled Pork Recipe

Yield. 5 pounds of bone-in pork butt, enough for 12-14 generous sandwiches after shrinkage, and trimming. Leftovers freeze nicely.

Preparation time. 10 minutes to trim and rub the meat.

Cooking time. Allow 10 hours or 2 hours per pound at 225°F. If you kick the temp up to 280°F, you can cut cooking time to about 1.5 hours per pound but the meat will probably be just a tiny bit less tender and juicy. Butts are very forgiving so temp control is not crucial. If you have a butt with picnic combo, the cooking time will not be much different because the diameter of the meat is about the same as the butt, and it is the thickness of the meat that controls cooking time, not the total weight. Allow plenty of advance time and if necessary, use a beer cooler as a faux Cambro to hold the meat.

Pulling time. 30 minutes if you do it with your fingers, 10 minutes with Bear Paws.

Toolkit
about 16 ounces of wood by weight
1 grill or smoker with lots of fuel
1 digital meat thermometer with a probe and a cable
1 digital oven or grill thermometer
1 alarm clock
1 lawn chair
1 good book
6 pack of beer
1 pair of shades
plenty of food themed tunes
sun tan lotion

Ingredients
1 pork butt, about 5 pounds
3 tablespoons of vegetable oil
1/3 cup Meathead's Memphis Dust
2 cups wood for smoke
10 kaiser rolls or hamburger buns
1 cup of your favorite barbecue sauce

Do this
1) Trim most of the of fat from the exterior of the meat but not all of it. Leave no more than 1/8". Some folks like to leave it all on hoping it will melt and baste the meat, but I want the seasonings on the meat, not on the fat, and I want the meat to get a crunchy flavorful, seasoned bark. Most of the butts I cook are 4 to 6 pounds, pretty well trimmed, and tied with butcher's twine to keep them from falling apart. If yours is not already tied, hogtie it something like the picture near the top. Don't worry if it isn't fancy, you're going to throw it out, just rope it so it doesn't fall apart.

2) Rinse and thoroughly dry the meat. Oil the meat with vegetable oil, coating all surfaces. This will help the rub adhere and also help dissolve the oil soluble flavors in the rub and carry it into the meat. Some folks like to slather it with yellow mustard first. I have tried it this way and I do not think it does anything noticeable. Besides, mustard does not contain oil, so oil soluble flavors in the rub don't dissolve. Cover your butt (ahem) generously with Meathead's Memphis Dust. You can start cooking right away, but if you let it sit for at least an hour, the salt and spices will penetrate a litle. You can let it sit overnight if you wish, but then the rub starts pulling liquid out. Not much, but a few ounces.

3) Insert a digital probe like the Maverick ET-732 and position the tip right in the center. Make sure it is not touching the bone or within 1/2" of the bone. Fire up the cooker to about 225°F and set it up for 2-zone or indirect smoke cooking (cooker setups are described in the technique section of this site). Put the meat on, right on the grate, not in a pan, add about 4 ounces of wood chips, pellets, or chunks to the coals, and go drink a coffee. Go make your sauce, slaw, and beans. Go watch the game. Then cut the lawn. Wash the windows. Smoke a cigar. Make love to your spouse. Unfold the lawn chair and read a book with a beer. You've got plenty of time. Just check your cooker every hour or so to make sure the fuel is sufficient and you are holding at 225 to 250°F. If it goes up to 300°F, don't worry. Butt is forgiving. But try to keep it down under 250°F. Add additional doses of wood, 4 ounces at a time, every 30 minutes for the first two hours for a total of 16 ounces. No need to add more. After a while the meat just won't absorb it.

Optional. Most competition cooks use a technique called the Texas Crutch. When the meat hits 150°F, moisture moves to the surface and starts cooling the meat like sweat on a marathon runner. As a result, the meat temp will not rise for as long as 5 hours. It stalls at 150°F. And it significantly lengthens the cook and drives people nuts. Competition cooks wrap their meat in a couple of layers of foil and toss in about 1/4 cup of liquid such as apple juice. Others put the meat in an aluminum pan, add the apple juice, and cover it tightly with foil. Then it goes back in the cooker. This stops the evaporation and powers the meat through the stall, retains moisture, and tenderizes a bit. Beginners should skip this step. You'll still have killer meat. After you get the hang of things, then you can try it. Click here to learn more about The Texas Crutch. Click here to learn more about The Stall.

4) Is it ready? When it hits about 170°F, collagens, which are part the connective tissues, begin to melt and turn to gelatin. That's magic baby. The meat gets much more tender when this happens. And juicy. When it hits 190°F, it may be ready, and it may not be ready. But it's time to check. The exterior should be dark brown. Some rubs and cookers will make the meat look black like a meteorite, but it is not burnt and it doesn't taste burnt. There may be glistening bits of melted fat. On a gas cooker it may look shiny pink. If there is a bone, use a glove or paper towel to protect your fingers and wiggle the bone. If it turns easily and comes out of the meat, the collagens have melted and you are done. If there is no bone, use the "stick a fork in it method". Insert a fork and try to rotate it 90 degrees. If it turns with only a little torque, you're done. If it's not done, close the lid and go drink a mint julep for 30 minutes. If the internal temp hits 190°F but the meat is still not tender, reduce the heat in your cooker to about 190°F and hold it there for as much as another hour. It should then be done. If not, you've just got a tough butt. Wrap tough butts in aluminum foil and let them go for another hour, but don't take them above 200°F or else the muscle fibers will start giving up moisture and toughen. If you can't control the temp on your cooker, wrap the meat in heavy duty foil and move it indoors into a 190°F oven. Do not add sauce while it is on the cooker. That comes after you pull it.

The fast method. After 2 hours of smoking at about 225°F with lots of smoke, put the meat on a roasting rack in a roasting pan and pour a cup of water or apple juice into the pan. Cover the meat with foil and fasten the foil tightly to the edges of the pan so the meat is in a nice enclosed environment. Roast in the indoor oven at 350°F for another 2 to 3 hours or until the temp hits 190°F and it passes the fork test, above.

5) When it is finally ready, go ahead, take a taste. You should notice a thick flavorful crust, and right below the telltale "smokering" (at right), the bright pink color caused by smoke mixing with combustion gases and moisture. Let it rest for 30 to 60 minutes. If you are more than an hour from mealtime, you can leave the meat on the cooker with the heat off or put it in the indoor oven and hold it there by dialing the temp down to about 150°F. If you are more than two hours from mealtime, wrap it in foil to keep it from drying out and hold it at 150°F. If you are taking the meat to a party, use a faux cambro, which is nothing more than a tight plastic beer cooler in which you can hold the meat. Leave the probe in the meat, wrap the hunk tightly in foil, wrap the foil with more towels, and put it the whole thing in the cooler. Fill up the cooler with more towels, blankets, or newspaper to keep the meat insulated. Hang the thermometer cord over the lid of the cooler, and close it tightly. Plug the cord into the readout and make sure it never drops below 145°F. Just know that this technique will soften the bark and change the texture of the meat very slightly.

6) About 30 minutes before sitting down for dinner, put the meat into a large pan to catch drippings. Pull the clod apart with Bear Paws, gloved hands, or forks. Discard big chunks of fat. If you wish you can slice it or chop it like they do in North Carolina, but I think you lose less moisture by pulling it apart by hand since the meat separates into bundles of muscle fibers, hence the name pulled pork. Try not to eat all the flavorful crusty bits when you are doing the pulling, and distribute them evenly throughout. Make sure you save any flavorful drippings and pour them over the meat.

For big parties I will smoke 3 or more butts, pull them, and then put them in a big pan. I add about 1/2 cup of water per 5 pounds, and about 1 tablespoon of butter per pound. I carry it to the party in a cold cooler. When I get to the party I heat it in a slow cooker. Occasionally I will add the sauce before I leave to make sure it is moist and easy to serve. Just don't use so much sauce that you can't taste the meat and the smoke.

Serving pulled pork

There are so many wonderful ways to serve pulled pork. It is marvelous just piled warm and steaming on a plate with no sauce. So many people make the mistake of dumping a bottle of sauce over the meat. Please don't. The taste unadorned and unadulterated, hot from the smoker, is unmatched in the culinary world. It is the quintessence of porkdom. Serve it nekkid. Urge people to taste it nekkid. Then, if they wish, a splash sauce on the top is all.

The classic pulled pork sammich. Mound it high on a nice bun. Top it with a small amount of your favorite sauce. This is where the Carolina vinegar and pepper sauces really shine. They soak in nicely and, if you go easy, really compliment the flavor. Try my Lexington Dip. or my East Carolina Kiss & Vinegar. I also love the mustard sauces like my South Carolina Mustard Sauce but my favorite is my herbaceous Grownup Mustard Sauce. I like my pulled pork with chopped raw onion mixed in. My wife likes her onion grilled and on top. Sometimes we chop up raw apple and mix it in, too. Sometimes I slice the roast rather than pull it and douse it with a classic Texas sauce, which is thin and more like a gravy. It lets the meat flavor come through without masking it. I know folks who like to garnish it with sliced tomato, pickle chips, and a raw onion slice.

Mound it on a bun with slaw, South Carolina style. In many places in the South folks often crown a pulled pork sandwich with slaw (use my Creamy Deli Slaw). Barbecue champ and instructor Jack Waiboer of Charleston tops his slaw with dill pickle chips and thin sliced Vidalia onions, and calls it the "Carolina Crusher."

With melted cheese. Mark Stevens in NJ says he takes "A nice bit of pulled pork, a thin slice of onion, a slice of pepper jack cheese, a good glug of Hoboken Eddies Mean Green Roasted Pepper Sauce" and puts it all on buttered white bread. He then places the sandwich in a pie iron, butter side out, and cooks it over a fire until golden brown and the cheese is melted.

Pulled Pork Reuben. Serve it on thick bread with sauerkraut, thousand island dressing, and melted Swiss cheese.

Carnitas. Bill Martin, a friend in Texas, likes to cut smoked butt into 1/2" pieces and fry them in a pan with some of the fat that dripped off. When crisp they make wonderful carnitas tacos, he says.

Rollups. Roll it in a tortilla with chopped onions, chopped tomatoes, jalapeño pepper, shredded cheese.

Throughout South Carolina, barbecue restaurants serve something called hash. The recipe varies from place to place, but it typically is a stew of ground leftover barbecue pork, pork liver, onion, and mustard based barbecue sauce, served over rice. Here, Jackie Hite of Hites Bar B Que in Batesburg shows us one of his two huge cast iron cauldrons in which he cooks his hash. It holds about 70 gallons.

I often get asked what's the best way to cook pulled pork or beef brisket on Saturday and serve it on Sunday. My answer is "don't do it". That's called serving leftovers.

These meats are best fresh off the smoker. If you have to serve it at noon on Sunday, then get up in the middle of the night and start cooking in the wee hours. If you need to take it to a game, then wrap the hot meat in foil and blankets and put it in a beer cooler and you can keep it warm that way for about two hours (read my article on faux Cambros).

If you don't want to cook overnight then consider serving something that doesn't take so long, like smoked turkey or baby back ribs.

If you cook it Saturday to serve Sunday, you must refrigerate the meat overnight. If you refrigerate it before pulling or slicing, it will take you hours to reheat it. That's a big hunk of meat. So you are best off pulling or slicing the meat on Saturday, and then refrigerating it.

Pulled pork the following day is best reheated in the microwave a small amount at a time. But it will be a bit drier and tougher than the first day, so bring back some life with a splash of water, apple juice, or barbecue sauce. The best method is in the microwave, second best is to heat it slowly in a pot with the lid on.

If you have leftovers that you will not scarf down in a few days, mix the leftovers with a bit of barbecue sauce, and freeze them in measured portions in zipper bags. The sauce prevents freezer burn. Pop one in the microwave and you've got a great emergency meal for two.

Here are some other things to do with leftovers.

In South Carolina, leftover pulled pork is often used in making "hash". The recipe varies from place to place, but it is typically a stew of pulled pork, pork liver, onion, and mustard sauce, served over white rice. Sounds plebeian, but I think it's ambrosia.

Another nice dish is pulled pork in Louisiana Dirty Rice. Classic Dirty Rice is white rice mixed with cooked chicken livers and giblets and the "holy trinity", which is sautéd green pepper, onion, and celery. But you can substitute or add pulled pork and amp it up.

Here's something fun: Plop some on top of a baked potato.

Joe Wells in Arkansas says he puts the leftovers in "Brunswick stew, baked beans, mixed with scrambled eggs, hash, the list goes on and on."

Sandra Aylor of Memphis sez: "With the leftovers, I like BBQ spaghetti or BBQ pizza".

Buzz in Wisconsin sez: "leftovers are made into tacos and enchiladas".

This page was revised 8/13/2011

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NOMINEE: 2010 World Food Media Awards MEMBER: International Association of Culinary Professionals MEMBER: Kansas City Barbeque Society MEMBER: National Barbecue Association REPRESENTED BY: The Lisa Ekus Group Promoting A World Of Culinary Talent Important Info About This Website AmazingRibs.com is all about the Zen of barbecue, grilling, and outdoor cooking, with great BBQ recipes and techniques: Barbecue baby back ribs, spareribs, pulled pork, beef brisket, steak, burgers, chicken, smoked turkey, lamb, barbecue sauces, burgers, steaks, rubs, and side dishes, with the world's best buying guide to barbecue smokers and grills. It is written, photographed, illustrated, and coded solely by Meathead. AmazingRibs.com is published by AmazingRibs, Inc., a Florida Corporation. Our philosophy about food is simple. First of all it must taste great. It must be easy to make and emphasize fresh seasonal products with a minimum of processed ingredients. We think that people need to know why as well as how, so we spend a lot of time explaining things, and we believe that there are no rules in the bedroom or dining room. About Product Reviews and Best in BBQ Gold, Silver, and Bronze Medals are highly recommended products. Awards are based on features, quality, and value. Rest assured that when we recommend a product, it is really because we like it, not because someone has paid us to say so or because the company is an advertiser or sponsor. We purchase most products we review although occasionally suppliers send us samples. We have always been transparent about when we are reviewing a product sample, even before the Federal Trade Commission Required it in 2009. About links on this site. Other than clearly marked ads, links and recommendations on this site are all products, services, and websites we truly admire, and are never paid endorsements. Your suggestions are always welcome. If you would like us to link to your website, click here to read our links policy first. Advertising on this site. AmazingRibs.com is one of the 100 most popular food websites in the US according to comScore, Alexa, and Quantcast. It is by far the most popular barbecue website in the world and pageviews double every year. Advertising on AmazingRibs.com is a great way to build your brand or make direct sales. I keep a strict wall between editorial and advertising, so, for current pricing and availability of prime space, contact my agency, Federated Media, by clicking the logo at right. Click here for analytics, stats, demographics, and advertising options. Our Privacy Promise. AmazingRibs, Inc. promises to never sell or distribute any info about you individually without your express permission, and we promise not to, ahem, pepper you with email or make you eat spam. Click here for more details of my privacy promise. Disclaimer. The information on this website is for educational purposes only. All material within comes without warranties of any kind. The authors are human and capable of mistakes, omissions, or errors, so we make no guarantees as to the accuracy, completeness, or safety of the information. Under no circumstances are we liable for any damages that result from use of the site (so you can't sue us if you don't like a recipe or if you burn your tongue on hot ribs, OK?). Copyright © 2011 by AmazingRibs, Inc. Unless otherwise noted, all text, recipes, photos, and code are owned by AmazingRibs, Inc and fully protected by US copyright law. This means you need written permission to republish or distribute anything on this website. But we're easy. To get reprint rights, click here. Note: Some photos of commercial products such as grills were provided by the manufacturers and under their copyright.

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