Pork Butt for Everyone

I decided it was time that I cooked a massive piece of meat. So I decided on the pork butt (which is actually the shoulder of the pig) for some delicious pulled pork bbq goodness. It also goes by the name Boston butt or roast and I think there's a few others. I got the boneless variety, 7 pounds of pork delivered to my door via Fresh Direct. I had them tie the roast up for me, which turned out to be a mistake, because there was probably about an inch (no joke) of fat on the top of the roast. It was actually relatively disgusting (and I really like pork fat) because it kind of looked like pig skin on top of the roast. Now I'm sure you're ready to vomit, sorry about that.

So I had to untie the roast, trim off the excess fat and tie it back up (if you get the bone-in variety I don't think you need to tie it up). Trimming the excess fat on the surface of the roast is ok because there's so much fat marbling (see my steak entry) it'll still stay moist inside through the long cooking process. Which is key to this roast, very low and very slow cooking. Hours and hours in the oven. The fat melts and the whole thing gets very tender, very moist and delicious. That is, unless you completely over cook it (keep reading).

The recipe I had said about 6 hours in the oven at 300 degrees, and after I read the directions there was a very brief flash through my head which sent me a warning signal I should have paid closer attention to - it seemed like kind of a high temperature. Many of the other recipes I had previously read mentioned 200 or maybe 250 degree ovens. But, my rule is follow a recipe the first time and make adjustments the 2nd time.

Luckily, about 4 1/2 hours into the cooking time, I decided to take the temperature of the meat, which, after about 10 readings was consistently 10 - 20 degrees above the target temperature. I took it out of the oven and allowed the roast its obligatory rest and then attempted to "shred" the meat, as it should have (in an ideal world) fallen apart. It was more like a tug of war with butt, which I was now not-affectionately referring to as the "ass." This, after Jeff had invited some friends over for dinner since we were going to be having 7 pounds of pig, which is about 6.5 pounds too many for us to eat ourselves. The cat, however, seemed to think that it still smelled good, until we put a piece in her bowl, to which she snubbed her nose. It wasn't looking good for our delicious bbq pork dinner.

I finished my tug-of-pork and had a reasonably "shredded-like" pile of meat. I poured some bbq sauce over the top and hoped that the sauce would sort of be soaked into the meat and make it at least some what more moist. In the end, it didn't taste terrible and it was actually edible, a battle well fought on my part. I wouldn't call it a victory, but I think I can safely say, it was a scrappy battle.

What I think the issue may have been was that the recipe was actually for a bone-in roast (it doesn't say) which would make it take longer to cook. I can say that I'm SO glad I decided to check the meat temperature well before it was scheduled to be done. I can't imagine if I had left the roast in for another 1.5 hours. I would have had a shrivled rock solid hunk of butt in the oven. Doesn't that sound delicious?

So if my disaster story has inspired you, a few things to keep in mind when cooking the pork beast:
1. always keep a thermometer in the roast so you can constantly measure the meat temperature, it should end up between 160-170 (not 190 like mine was) - in fact I would ignore all cooking times and depend only on the internal temperature readings 2. make sure you know whether the recipe is for a bone-in or boneless roast
3. pour the bbq sauce on it when its warm, it really will soak up some of the sauce
4. don't invite guests until after you know whether or not it turned out to be delicious
5. if it's boneless, I'd probably cook it at 200-250 and cook it until it gets to the right temperature
6. have the butcher cut off the excess fat for you (if there is any) and then tie up the roast if its boneless

Here's the recipe for the rub I used (which was good), and if you want to make this, you can follow my guidelines above (or you may not want to since I haven't actually made a successful roast yet)! I got the recipe from the Food Network.

Pork Roast Rub
3 T paprika (I used the spicy variety)
1 T garlic powder
1 T brown sugar
1 T dry mustard
3 T salt (kosher/sea salt better)

Mix everything together and rub all over the roast, allow it to sit at least an hour up to overnight. Good for a roast about 5 - 7 pounds. Don't over cook it!!