How to Smoke Pork Butt _ How to Make Pulled Pork Recipe

Um Hey guys , welcome to Mad Scientist barbecue .

I'm Jeremy odor .

And today I'm gonna show you how to make an absolutely critical barbecue item pulled pork .

First , I want to address meat quality .

Now , there are some things where meat quality matters a whole bunch .

If you're cooking beef , it matters a lot for us .

Today .

It doesn't matter that much because when it comes to a pork butt like we have today , there's so much fat and so much connective tissue that if you cook it low and slow for a long enough time , if you treat it right , it's gonna end up tender and juicy in the end no matter what .

Secondly , I want to address why you have to cook this thing low and slow .

There are two reasons .

Number one , you need enough time to render that fat properly .

And number two , you need enough time to break down the collagen .

So , collagen , you can imagine it as a springy spongy type of material that makes young people's faces taught .

And when you get old , it starts to break down and your face starts to sag with a pork butt .

There's lots of collagen .

So you need time and heat to break that down .

And one thing you may notice in your grease , drain after you cook these is you're gonna have a layer of fat .

And then below that , you're gonna have this weird brown jello like substance .

And that is actually the broken down collagen .

It turns into gelatin .

So it sounds gross that you're making this weird meat jello .

But trust me , when you break down the collagen in this pork butt , you're gonna be very happy .

Now , let's get into prepping this meat .

Fortunately , for us , cooking a pork butt is one of the easiest things you could ever do in barbecue .

Now , there are still ways to mess up , but the learning curve isn't too steep .

As long as you follow some basic principles , you should be able to make something that tastes incredible and satisfy all your friends and family in line with being easy .

There's not really any trimming .

You have to do .

The one thing I will say that is important is make sure you get a bone in pork butt .

That way you hold in all the juices and you don't have bits on the outside that dry out .

Now , when it comes to trimming , you don't really need to trim anything .

You could actually season it just as it is , put it on the smoker and be totally fine .

But there's one trick that I like to do because I think it helps render the fat and all that is , is I score the fat on top of the pork butt after having cooked thousands of pounds of pulled pork .

Now , before you scoff at thousands of pounds , I have a catering business and it's not something unusual for me to cook 20 or 30 pork butts at a time .

But after cooking so much pulled pork , I've realized that for me , I like the simple flavor of just salt and pepper and then have it executed extremely well .

Other people might like a different batch of season because they want sweet and they want spice and they want different kinds of flavors .

For me , I like it simple .

But for you guys , you may want those other flavors .

So I'm gonna give you a simple rub recipe that's gonna help you create bark and flavor on the outside surface of the meat .

So this rub recipe is very simple .

I have six tablespoons of brown sugar .

You can use light brown sugar or dark up to you .

Then I have three tables spoons of black pepper .

I have of course ground about 16 mesh .

Then two tablespoons of garlic powder , two tablespoons of ancho chili powder .

You can substitute paprika .

This is mainly a coloring agent .

But if you use ancho chili , it provides a nice kind of raisin new flavor as well as color .

And then finally about one tablespoon of onion powder .

And you may ask , well , where's the salt ?

I add the salt separately because then I can control exactly how much salt and I won't worry about over or under salting the meat based on how much rub I want on the outside with this pork butt season .

It's time to take it and put it out on the smoker .

Also , I'm gonna be doing one that's just salt and pepper .

So I'm gonna season it with a 50 50 mix of kosher salt and coarse ground black pepper .

So that in the end , we can compare the results of doing it with a rub and doing it with just salt and pepper .

And yes , if you're wondering it is 50 50 by volume , not weight .

Now , the basic guidelines for how I'm going to do this cook are pretty simple , 250 degrees the whole time and I'm using pecan wood .

Now , if you not , you look at the smoke stack , you're not seeing a bunch of white smoke coming out of there .

It's because I'm burning a clean fire .

If you have any questions about that , check out my fire management video and I explain the whole process and the science behind it .

We're going to leave these things in there untouched and unwatched for the next three hours .

So I'm just going to maintain a rock solid temperature and then in three hours , we're going to open it up and take a look and may start spraying , but we're going to cross that bridge when we get there .

Mhm .

Um .

Mhm .

No .

Been about four hours .

So I want to see how these things are doing to see if I need to start spraying .

Here .

We have the one that we coated with rub .

You see , we have a darker bark on here because of that sugar .

And then here is just salt and pepper .

It's a more red color .

The bark isn't as dark because the sugar doesn't kind of break down and make that dark coating that you have on the first one internal temperature of 156 .

So it tells me we're getting close to time to wrap , but it's not quite time to wrap .

Number one , I want the temperature to be a little bit higher , something closer to 170 .

And then most importantly , I want this fat that's on the top to render properly right now .

It's still springy .

It bounces right back .

But when it's rendered properly , it just gives in almost as if it's like jello .

At this point , I've switched the places of these pork butts so that they cook as evenly as possible .

And I have a dark enough bark at this point that I want to start spraying .

So here I have apple cider vinegar .

Of course , this is overkill for a pit , this small , but I usually don't use it on this little pit , but it's the one I use all the time now .

So that's what I'm going to use today .

One important note when you're spraying , do not spray the fat , you do not want to cool the fat down and you want to preserve all the meat that's exposed .

You don't want any of that to burn .

So , focus on spring , the meat if you get the fat , not the end of the world , but focus on the meat instead .

Mhm .

Yeah .

So we're about six hours in , at this point and ever since about the three hour mark I've been spraying every 30 to 45 minutes and right now I have really good color , especially on the one that has the rub .

That's a really nice , dark color but nothing is burned .

I just have caramelized sugars on the outside .

So that looks great .

Internal temperature is in the high 160 .

And most importantly , the thing that I looking for to make sure that it's time to wrap is the fat on top is starting to render .

So now when I poke it , it doesn't just bounce back , my finger sinks into the fat that tells me it's time to get this thing wrapped up .

So , what I'm going to do is use two layers of heavy duty aluminum foil , wrap them up tightly and then put them back on the smoker .

One note here is you don't have to put the pork butts back on the smoker or a brisket back on the smoker after you've wrapped , you can go take it inside , put it in your oven and stop worrying about managing a fire .

You can save your wood that way .

But for me it's just easier to keep them on here .

So that's what I'm going to do .

But at home don't worry about putting it in the oven .

It's not a bad thing to do at all .

Oh , beautiful .

Um , one other important note is after you've wrapped the meat , you don't have to be super concerned about burning the cleanest fire in the whole world at this point .

It's only about temperature .

So that's why you can put it in the oven because you're not going to absorb any more flavor .

You're not going to absorb good flavor or bad flavor , whatever is in there is in there .

So keep your temperatures consistent .

If the fire burns a little dirty , don't freak out about it .

It's not going to be a problem at all .

It's been several hours since we wrapped these pork butts .

And more important than the time .

Vastly more important than the time is the temperature and even more important than the temperature is the feel of the meat itself .

So I use my thermo pen and I checked the temperature .

It was two , 32 oh four and some spots .

But the most important part was when I put it in , it felt like butter .

I know these things are done .

So I'm going to take them off and here's a crucial step .

That you cannot forget .

You must let these pork butts rest or any meat that you're barbecuing for that matter .

So , ideally you go an hour , at least on a pork butt for briskets .

I'd say at least two hours .

But right now I'm gonna take them inside , let them rest to slowly come down to temperature .

So , when I pull them , they're not so hot that they dry out right away .

So we've let it rest for an hour now and it's time to pull it one way that you can tell if you've gotten your pork butt tender enough is to remove the bone .

If the bone comes straight out , you know , it's a nice and tender butt .

You don't have to worry about any parts of it being too tough or anything you wouldn't want to serve , it's ready to go .

So I'm gonna turn it to the side so you can see this and let's see if this bone comes out cleanly .

Not bad .

I'd say now that we have a tender butt here also , I want you to take a look at the bark .

So the bark is the thing on the outside that has all of that flavor .

It's the reason we barbecue because you can make this thing tender in the oven .

But you're not gonna get a bark like that on anything except a smoker and you're not gonna get a bark that's this flavorful on anything except an offset smoker .

So that's why we go through all the trouble of maintaining the fire going out there .

It's like 30 degrees today .

That's why it's worth it because of that flavor that you can't get anywhere else .

A couple of other things to notice are the rendered fat as well as this crack right in the top of the pork butt .

So the rendered fat , you can tell because you stick your finger there and it just gives and then it's really sticky , it sticks to your hands .

It's kind of uh almost like the same texture that you would get .

If uh there was some candy that was a little bit wet on the exterior , it just sticks .

Um Those are the things that you're looking for that tell you you've cooked this thing , right ?

And so the reason we rendered the fat properly is because we cook hot enough .

And for long enough that all that fat starts to break down and then you don't have big chewy chunks of white fat .

But instead you have perfectly rendered fat that's going to marry beautifully with the lean meat on the inside .

When we shred this up at this point , all we have left to do is tear off a piece and see how we did , man .

There's no replacement for the kind of flavor you get from real barbecue .

If you cook meat with a real fire , there's nothing else like it that is phenomenal and I'm partial to salt and pepper myself .

But that is incredibly good .

My wife goes back and forth about her favorite barbecue item .

Is it brisket ?

Is it pulled pork ?

Well , today this is gonna be your favorite .

I can't wait to make a sound out of this .

But before we do that , let's take a look at the other pork butt that I made and that was just salt and pepper as a seasoning and see how it compares .

So when we look at the one season with just salt and pepper , we notice it's a little bit lighter but not too , too much lighter .

It has all the same qualities fat rendered , it sticks to your finger .

You have these little strings , that kind of stick to your glove .

Everything you want .

The smell on this one is incredible too .

And I just want to compare this taste versus that taste because the tenderness is the same .

I can pull this bone out .

No problem again , just yank it out done .

So let me tear off a piece that was very difficult .

And let's see here for me on this one , the flavor of smoke shines through more clearly than the one with all the other rub on it .

Now , I think if you're gonna cook on a smoker that doesn't have tons and tons and tons of smoke flavor , maybe going with the rub is the best choice .

But for me , for my preference , I like the salt and pepper .

Just because it's simple and clear .

And if it's done properly , you don't need anything else .

It's like a great steak .

If you have a great steak , you can use just salt and pepper and have a phenomenal experience without having to complicate it with other seasonings .

Whichever option you choose .

I'm confident that if you follow this method , you're gonna be able to make phenomenal pulled pork and you don't have to spend a boatload of money to get great food .

Now , let me show you my favorite way to eat this to me .

There's no better way to eat pulled pork than what I'm about to show you right now .

I like to make pulled pork sliders .

It starts with a King's Hawaiian roll .

I cut it in half and then I put in a chunk of pork .

I add some slaw and then I add a yellow mustard based sauce .

That's a barbecue sauce that's from the Carolinas that I think goes perfectly with pulled pork because it's tangy and cuts through the fattiness and makes a perfect compliment .

One quick note , this is a pro tip , shred your pork as you go .

So as you're using it shred , it don't shred it all at once because the longer it's shredded , the more it dries out and the less flavorful it's gonna be , I'm looking at this thing and I cannot wait to eat it .

My mouth is watering just thinking about it .

Now , I'm gonna post recipes for the sauce and the slaw in the description box below .

But if you have a favorite slaw or a favorite barbecue sauce , feel free to use those .

These are my favorites and I hope you guys give them a try .

If you enjoyed the video , let me know by hitting the like button down below .

You can also leave a comment with the way you like to eat pulled pork and then finally subscribe to the channel and hit the notification bell .

So you get notified every time I put out a new video , I'll see you guys next time .