Cooking smaller pork butts

[gpbst3]

I was able to find a buy one get one free deal on pork butts. One is 2lbs and one is 2.8 lbs.

I was only going to cook one of them.

Being small cuts is there anything different I need to do?

 

[Pete590]

Not really,they will cook faster,as long as you monitor temps and spray with liquid like every 45 min you should be fine. I wrap at 165,pull off at 203-205 ish

 

[Ostrichsak]

I actually just cooked a ~2.5lb Boston Butt this last weekend. Slathered in mustard, then Famous Dave's rub and thrown on the smoker @ 225deg. Once it hit 165 IT I wrapped tightly in foil and threw back on until it hit 200deg.

So far this is the same basic steps to any size butt I've smoked.

The only slight deviation was the rest time once it hit 200deg and this was directly due to it being done WELL ahead of when I planned. It went from the smoker (still in the foil) to a cooler wrapped in one of my wife's (not good) bath towels. Normally I'd rest it probably an hour or less in most cases. In this case, it rested for more like 5 hours. I was careful to monitor the temperature the entire time to make sure it didn't get too low. I think when I pulled it out to pull it it was 154deg. Another thing I did was I to dump the juices from the foil into the big container I pull the pork in.

Once done, I added a little fresh crushed tellicherry black pepper, pink Himalayan sea salt & a dash of apple cider vinegar. Minimal on all of the above though as I prefer the meat flavor to be the star of the show. It's one of the best pulled pork cooks I've ever made and I really didn't expect that. In the past, whenever I did smaller butts they turned out dry and flavorless by comparison. This one was amazing.

I know I went off on a bit of a journey there but I would say that wrapping is important on smaller butts not because of the stall but to help keep the juices in.

Best of luck!

 

[mrb12549]

You are correct about the importance of the wrap. I have used either butcher paper or foil with good results. But you do get the juices from the foil to work with. I never thought about applying additional seasonings at the end, I will give it a try. These things are gooooood.