How to Hold Pork Butt?

[BigDog]

Ok, I have a pork butt on my RT590 it should finish about midnight and I would like to serve it at lunch tomorrow?? My oven temp will only go down to 184F can I hold it in there or is that too high of a temperature and it will dry out? Any ideas?

Thanks

 

[Pacman]

Heat the oven to like 200 - 225. Put the meat in the oven and shut the oven off. You might want to wrap the meat in foil, but probably just a loose cover. Cut, shred, chop, or whatever you're planning to do closer to meal time. A 12 hour rest is a long one, but I'm willing to bet that it will hold it's heat pretty well if left intact in a warm place. When you get up in the morning and the meat's below 145, I think you'd be okay firing up the oven a bit again.

You might want to put on some sort of tray to catch and retain any juices to incorporate back into your product.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

 

[Gonefishin]

If it was me I’d pull it and reheat the pulled meat before lunch. In reality I would have tried to not have it done till some time in the morning.

 

[Pacman]

If it was me I’d pull it and reheat the pulled meat before lunch. In reality I would have tried to not have it done till some time in the morning.

Yeah, that's a good thought as well. My wife always complains when I reheat meat so I try not to...for marital bliss and all.

I agree that I prefer to start late at night, if needed, and finish in daylight when I'm less likely to do something dumb near the finish line. I've only had one mishap in cooking overnight when I ran out of pellets, but I was able to get the thing up and running pretty quick when I started getting the low temperature alarms.

 

[Waterboy]

If you have a countertop roaster oven you can usually get them to hold around 150. I’ve rested briskets in mine for 12-14 hours before and they were some of the best ones I’ve ever done. Leave them wrapped in paper or foil as they come off the smoker. I usually let the meat cool to around 170-180 before I put it in the roaster. I use my inkbird with an ambient probe to monitor the roaster temp and a meat probe to monitor the meat.

 

[Greg Jones]

If you have a countertop roaster oven you can usually get them to hold around 150. I’ve rested briskets in mine for 12-14 hours before and they were some of the best ones I’ve ever done. Leave them wrapped in paper or foil as they come off the smoker. I usually let the meat cool to around 170-180 before I put it in the roaster. I use my inkbird with an ambient probe to monitor the roaster temp and a meat probe to monitor the meat.

My Breville Joule oven will go as low as 120°, but it’s just a little small for most full packer briskets. I’m going to try it at 145° on my next pork butt.

 

[Waterboy]

@Greg Jones let us know how it turns out.

 

[Mozekian]

I mocked my wife when she wanted a warming drawer for our house, “we will never need that,” I said. Boy was I wrong. Will go as low as 120 and holds perfect 150 degrees for resting long cooks

 

[Pete6737]

This is my usual way to hold one butt until shred time:
I will double wrap in foil , then wrap that in a towel. This goes on a small cookie sheet then place it in a small cooler that has a sauce pan of freshly boiled water on the bottom, that’s also on a towel to avoid melting the plastic. Preferably the small cookie sheet is centered and resting on top of the hot water saucepan. I’ve held pork butts that were taken off at a little over 200 degrees for 8 hours this way. I do use a probe in the butt to monitor the cooling. If you can’t get a small cookie sheet to fit in the cooler just place the wrapped/ toweled butt directly over the saucepan.
Usually it’s around 140 at the 7-8 hour mark. If I need it to cool quicker closer to eating time I put it on the stove and open the foil a bit. I usually can get a good read for the right time/temp. 6 /8 degrees an hour is what I experienced. Pulling apart the butt any hotter than the 140s will lead to dry shards of meat as all the moisture will be evaporating as you’re pulling it apart. I shoot for just under 140 and pull it apart with nitrile gloved hands.

Use the smallest cooler to get the least amount of air space in the cooler. A big cooler with one pork butt will cool faster. Conversely I have used a tiny styrofoam cooler with just a foil/towel wrapped package of butt snugly fit and it also lasted for 8 hours easily.
I’ve routinely pulled off at 9am and ate at 5pm this way for years.

Good luck, Pete

 

[PRC]

I mocked my wife when she wanted a warming drawer for our house, “we will never need that,” I said. Boy was I wrong. Will go as low as 120 and holds perfect 150 degrees for resting long cooks

I agree, we use our warming drawer all the time. Great for keeping all kinds of food warm when you are cooking a meal, food for a complete meal is never done at the same time. Also got talked into a convection microwave oven, great to have two ovens when you have items needing to be cooked at different temperatures or if you have a smaller meal and don't need to turn on the bigger oven.