Smoking my first pork butt

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Fixit

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  1. Deck Boss 590
I need advice on smoking a 7.5 lb. Pork butt on my new Deck Boss. What temp and about how long will it take, and to what IT do you pull it and wrap?
 
I need advice on smoking a 7.5 lb. Pork butt on my new Deck Boss. What temp and about how long will it take, and to what IT do you pull it and wrap?
I tend to back into my finish time based on a temperature setting. Seems I have posted that before, but in short I swag about 1.5 hours per pound at 225, shorter for 250 and longer for anything under 225. I generally start @180 for a solid two hrs. For some smoke and then up the temp to 250. I never wrap unless I have a monster hunk of meat or have very little time. RT has a vid as do others on doing the hot and fast cooks for butts and brisket as does Miron Mixon aka MeatHead. Can find them on YouTube.

If you wrap wait for the stall somewhere between 150 - 170 degree. When the temp just sits there not increasing for a longer time than it has been.

Pork is rather forgiving and Always cook to temp using a trusted thermometer.

If you are pulling the pork the final temps can run 195ish to 205 but if it is a bone in, giving that bone a little twist will tell the story. The bone should come right out and clean.

Best of luck and enjoy. It is about the adventure and the learning. 🍻
 
I tend to back into my finish time based on a temperature setting. Seems I have posted that before, but in short I swag about 1.5 hours per pound at 225, shorter for 250 and longer for anything under 225. I generally start @180 for a solid two hrs. For some smoke and then up the temp to 250. I never wrap unless I have a monster hunk of meat or have very little time. RT has a vid as do others on doing the hot and fast cooks for butts and brisket as does Miron Mixon aka MeatHead. Can find them on YouTube.

If you wrap wait for the stall somewhere between 150 - 170 degree. When the temp just sits there not increasing for a longer time than it has been.

Pork is rather forgiving and Always cook to temp using a trusted thermometer.

If you are pulling the pork the final temps can run 195ish to 205 but if it is a bone in, giving that bone a little twist will tell the story. The bone should come right out and clean.

Best of luck and enjoy. It is about the adventure and the learning. 🍻
I appreciate the helpful advice.
Thanks.
 
I also do the first two hours at 180 then bump it up to 225. I have started slicing butts in half along the bone line and smoking the two parts separately. There is more surface area for the rub and bark. I place each half on a wire rack that I set on top of a single use aluminum pan. When it gets to stall, I remove the rack and lower the butts into the aluminum pan and cover them with foil. At that point I sometimes bring them inside and use the oven and sometimes just leave them on the smoker. I do the rest of the cook at 250. If I get short on time I will raise the temperature to 275. When probe tender I shut off the oven and open the door for a few seconds to exhaust some of the heat. Then, I let them rest for at least 2 hours before pulling.

The aluminum pans make the wrap part easy and capture the juices. Plus I can pull the butts in those pans and let them soak up the juices.
 
I have done them low & slow at 225F overnight and it has taken 8-10 hours to get in that 200-205F internal meat temp range. But the key is making sure it’s probe tender. That can be as high as 210F internal temp.

Recently, I did a bone-in 10 lb’er at 325F grill temp for about 5 hours…no wrap. Turned out pretty good. Didn’t have quite as much smoke as a low & slow but I was trying to do it same day and have it ready by 2pm. I wasn’t ashamed of it. 🤭
I did spritz it often after hour 2.

Like someone else said…they’re forgiving.

As @RattleR noted above, I use my RT app and watch for the stall somewhere around 170F internal meat temp. You’ll see it start to flatline. That’s when I normally wrap and finish the cook.

Here’s my cook chart from when I recently cooked two chuck roasts (for poor man’s brisket). Please note the flat line a little above the 150F mark. That’s the stall. (Please ignore that I didn’t pay attention very well as it was in the stall for a little over an hour before I noticed it and wrapped it.) 🤭
1737087022110.webp

Note: I don’t save all my cook charts but I try to save information about some of my notable cooks / events.
 
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What Rattler R said for a whole butt.

I get my pork shoulder (butt) from Costco and they are boneless; therefore, butterflying them is pretty easy. I went one step further and made about 2" steaks out of each butt. Cooked faster and got way more bark per pound. Trick is pinning all the bits together with bamboo spears (cocktail spears from Amazon).
 
Go to Sam’s they have pork steaks ready to go, usually bone in. Country ribs would be pretty much the same.
 

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