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Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Battle of the Butts..

Very talented smoking friend.. Jon, was kind enough to share his pork butt injection ingredients with me not long ago and I finally had the chance to give it a try... (thank you again Jon! :))

It was also a great time for me to test the difference between a Memphis Pro smoked pork butt and a butt smoked on my drum..

I injected one with a mixture of apple juice, water, brown sugar. kosher salt, worcestershire sauce, (did I spell that right?) and soy sauce... (This was Jon's list of ingredients.)

Then I used my usual mixture of beef broth, cayenne, onion and garlic powders, and a bit of brown sugar, to inject the second butt...




I sprinkled ......hmmmm.. I sprinkled the first butt with Harley's dry rub, and then.. hmmm.. coated my butt with Zaaschilas Chipotle Creamosa sauce and then sprinkled with pepper.
(whew..trying to word that without offending anyone.... :))

Wrapped the butts and chilled overnight.



Placed the chipotle creamosa pork butt on the drum...





and Jon's butt on the Memphis Pro...



Set both to a temperature of 225F... used hickory.




I did baste both with a concoction of cider vinegar, onion, garlic, and red pepper flakes...




I removed the drum butt at an internal temperature of 195F, wrapped and let it rest...

It took 9 1/2 hours to reach that temperature. ( I did not weigh the butts, just went by what temperature I wanted to pull them out of the smoker)



.


Now Jon's butt was a bit stubborn... It hit a stall at 165F degrees and stayed there for over 3 hours...
I pulled the butt from the smoker at 185F internal..after 13 hours in the Pro.... wrapped and let it rest...



My butt from the drum....It was moist and tasty.. :)



Jon's butt from the Pro....
I was anxious to see if the Pro would produce a smokering as defined as the drum...
It sure did!! The butt was sooo good too!! Moist and tender...





my drum butt in the back and Jon's Pro butt in the pan in front...




I loved both, they were very tasty. I did like Jon's injection better than my beef broth one and plan on using it again.

I have replenished my stash of smoked pork for future use..




I build a pulled pork tostada for supper ...




topped with fresh pico de gallo and a bit of cheese...




I'm a happy girl. :)








Jon, if you see this.. Thank you again! :)

22 comments:

JC said...

Wow! I feel honored to be on your blog. My Memphis stalls my butts, too. The last time I finally got 193, it took 19 hours! It was like waiting for Godot to show...

Thanks for all your inspiration, Jeanie! You're the best!

Jon

cowgirl said...

Jon, Thank you so much! Your injection recipe was perfect. :)
I had planned on leaving the butt on until it reached a higher temp but I was too sleepy. lol
19 hrs.. wow!! I bet it was worth the wait though...
Thanks again Jon, I owe ya. :)

Unknown said...

Now, that is the kind of test that I would like to take part in. Can I be part of the control group?

cowgirl said...

Sure Ron! I still have plenty of smoked pork stashed away. lol
Thanks Ron! :)

Big Dude said...

Nice looking butt you got there Jeanie. Tostada looks very good as well.

David P. Offutt - The Gastronomic Gardener said...

Looks amazing! I am surprised there has not been any butt jokes yet, so I will refrain!

Thanks for sharing, I've uh, never injected my butt, but I might.

Thanks again for the inspiration!

Old Smoke said...

Jeanie
WOW !!! 13 hours Whew!
Good job on the grub as usual.

"The Battle of the Butts"
Hmmmmmm !
Sounds like a great book title :)

Anonymous said...

The butcher may call them pork butts, but they actually come from the front shoulder. So, use "shoulder" instead of "butt" and you won't offend anyone!

cowgirl said...

Larry Thank you! I liked both and have been eating pulled pork sandwiches for lunch. :)

cowgirl said...

lol Thanks Dave! I almost mentioned that my butt was slightly bigger than Jon's but thought I best leave that out. lol

cowgirl said...

lol Rick! That would be a good title!
Thanks. :)

cowgirl said...

lol That would work Anonymous...Battle of the Shoulders! Sounds kind of interesting. :)
Thanks!!

JP said...

When smoking pork butts "low and slow", controlling my smoker's temp to keep it as close to 225° as possible, I have always noticed a long internal temperature stall period. That is when you have to be very patient. I believe at that point, the proteins have all tightened up, but continued steady low heat will cause the proteins to eventually relax and start to take in the moisture of the melted fat around them and I suspect that is when we see the temp start to rise again. Patience makes the best pork butts. Mrs. JP and I try to work in shifts because we have found that some of the butts (the ones farthest from the fire box of our horizontal Klose smoker) can take as much as 20 hours of low and slow before they're ready to be pulled off the smoker.

I have a pretty good spice rub recipe that I got out of ol' John Willingham's recipe book, but I have never tried the injection method. I'm definitely going to have to give that a try.

cowgirl said...

Thank you JP!
Isn't it aggravating? :) My horizontal does that too.. I rotate the meat half way through and it seems to help even out the cooking.
I was too sleepy to hang in there through this last stall...having someone take over would have been so nice! :)

Thanks again JP!

Mrs. JP said...

Wow, after reading that post I'm so thankful that I've pulled out a bag of pulled pork for supper!! It's our last one though, so, you know what we'll be doing soon.
It is absolute torture during "the stall." That's when I start the pitiful, "I'm so sleepy--can't we finish them in the oven," party.

Jeffery said...

I remember putting a large picnic in my WSM cooker and it taking the upwards of 15 hours to cook. It stayed a 160f for what seemed a eternity! Finally I popped it off at 11pm at 185f and had if for lunch the next day. My and my girl ate something else while watching it cook. Kind of like watching grass grow! lol Next time I woke up early to get it going,
Both those butts look good to me for sure! Nice job!

cowgirl said...

:) Mrs JP, isn't it nice to have a stash of smoked pork in the freezer!! It comes in so handy..and tastes so good. I've made burritos and sandwiches with this batch so far. I'm trying to save some but it's hard. lol

Thanks!

cowgirl said...

lol Jeffery, sounds about like my night! I ate something else while waiting.
They did eventually turn out to be tasty.. lol
Thanks Jeffery... :)

Bushman said...

Nice looking smoke ring on those. It's 7 am and I'm craving pork. My question is once all those proteins tighten up and squeeze out all the juices(making it tough and dry like my mother used to cook) where do the juices go while waiting for the protein to release and suck them back up like a sponge? Seems like they would need a container or something to cook in. I've never smoked a Butt I did do a brisket once but it was a little dry.

cowgirl said...

Thanks Bushman! One thing I like about pork butts is they have so much internal fat they are self basting. :) The juices stay in the meat. Hope you try one sometime...watch out for the stall though. lol

Chris said...

Hard to believe, but we are actually out of frozen pulled pork. Don't know how that happened.

I do have fun doing side by side comparisons like this.

cowgirl said...

Chris it's nice to have on hand isn't it. :)
Thanks!