Brine or marinade a pork butt?

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Homercidal

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My wife bought a pork butt, so I guess I have to smoke the thing. Darn.

I was just sitting here wondering why nobody talks about brining or marinading a pork butt before smoking. I'm wondering if it would add another layer of flavor?

I'm all out of rub I think, so I plan on making my own this time. Any recommendations?
 
A lot of people talk about brining a pork shoulder, and many who don't talk about brining it inject it instead.

I've personally found them to be so forgiving as cuts of meat that I've never thought it needed it, but it's certainly not "out of bounds" to talk about brining it.

One tip I've used with brisket that would equally work with pork butt. Instead of using mustard, or worcestershire, or olive oil to bind the rub to the meat, try sriracha sauce. It doesn't make the meat spicy, but it's something a little different to kick up the flavor.
 
My favorite rub starts with garlic salt - the kind that has little green flecks in it, I believe it's a McCormick's product. Start with a cup of that, then I add paprika (hot, sweet, or smoked, whatever you got), garlic powder, onion powder, ancho chile powder, some rubbed dried oregano, rubbed dried thyme, cumin, and some Tajin Clasico if you can find it - it adds a nice citrus note to the rub. Maybe about a teaspoon of each, except the oregano, cumin and thyme and Tajin, about 1/2 teaspoon each. Shake it all up together. Store in a jar with a tight-fitting lid. I use this on all kinds of stuff, including hot wings that I bake in the oven.

I recently did a pork butt in the pressure cooker with a Carolina vinegar-based cooking liquid and sauce. Man it's good! Easy too, and the meat was on sale at .89/pound - can't be that with a stick.
 
I smoke alot of butts and I never brine or marinate them- really no reason to IMO.
I have injected before with Cherry Dr Pepper, apple juice and ginger ale. I prefer Cherry Dr Pepper-
Also, try just salt, black pepper and a little chili powder only as your rub. I tried it last time I smoked a butt and it was really good.
 
ive done brine and without brine. not much of a difference IMO. i dont brine anymore.
 
Ok that makes sense. I wasn't trying for moisture with it, just penetrating the meat with more flavor.

My problem now is when to smoke it. I'd like it done for dinner when it's still fresh, but that means starting the thing very early in the morning, and then I can't mop it due to being at work. I have had good luck with mopping fairly often and I'd like to be able to do that, but I can't leave work every hour or so all day long.

If it were summer, I could hire my kid to do it for me. Maybe I should just let it hang out in the fridge until this weekend and do it right.
 
I just started 2 butts at 0300 this morning! Good luck with the smoke
 
I just started 2 butts at 0300 this morning! Good luck with the smoke

That was my plan last night!

Then I said F'it! I'm not getting up at 3:00 unless I can mop that butt proper!

Also, FYI I found a nice rub recipe yesterday and got that butt all rubbed up. Looks and smells good. Can't wait to get it on the smoker! (Actually, apparently I CAN wait, or it's be on the smoker already!) ((Actually, the weather turned nasty last night and so there was no way I could have smoked that thing with the gusts we had.))
 
Not sure on your set up but I usually smoke butts all night. Set my temp controller, fill the chute with charcoal and let her rip.
Don't mop or spritz. Pull when the blade bone slides out, wrap in foil then a towel and into a cooler for an hour or so rest. then pull. I sometime rip off the bark before wrapping. IMO that's the best part. Luckily i'm the one only one who really cares for the bark.
I always find adding rub/apple juice etc once pulled imparts more flavor than anything else.

BTW, you can also remove the blade bone prior to smoking. Basically butterflying the butt. Gives more surface area for bark formation and cuts down on cook time.
 
I do not marinade. I did a few times but never noticed the difference so now I don't bother. I've never injected either because I didn't want to "push out" the natural juices.

After many rubs and variations, this is the rub I use, which has become the house rub for any pork. I like it on a big pork loin the best.

http://leitesculinaria.com/74697/recipes-quito’s-butt-rub.html

I wanted to smoke a pork butt last weekend but couldn't at the last minute so my wife threw it in the roasting pot for the oven and made it like a beef pot roast with potatoes, carrots, onions, etc... turned out very tastey. I never had a pork butt like that, only ever smoked or crock pot for pulled pork. Just in case something comes up or weather turns for the worse.
 
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Lately I've been injecting mine with hard cider (kinda have a bunch just lying around) and rubbed with my super-duper top secret recipe...see below. Smoked with 50/50 apple and cherry wood for 9-12 hours at ~220°.

2 Tbsp. sugar
4 tsp. seasoned salt
1 Tbsp. paprika
.5 tsp. pepper
1 Tbsp. garlic powder
.25 tsp. cumin
.5 tsp. salt
.5 tsp. crushed red pepper
 
A brine is always a brine, but a marinade can be a brine at the same time. A brine is basically just salt, sugar, water, and vinegar. Marinades are quite often salt, sugar, flavorful liquid, vinegar, and additional spices/herbs/sauces. I know this might be considered heresy in the world of BBQ, but they really arent that different culinarily.

Take a basic brine, then throw some garlic, black pepper, red pepper flake, brown sugar/molasses and beer and you have a marinade basically. I'll do a cheater brisket by "brining" it in a "marinade" for 24 hours. Then remove it, pat dry with a paper towel, then rub it down with a dry rub. Wrap in foil and put it in my oven for 8-10 hours at 200-210. Pull it out, cool to room temp, then place it in the fridge over night. Then fire up my grill with some lump charcoal, and place a bunch of hard wood chips and give it a hot and fast grilling with some added smoke.

Yes I know thats not true "bbq" but its a decent fake and tastes delicious. The "marinade" added deep flavor, the rub and grilling added "surface" flavor. Cut me some slack though once I get/build a smoker I will be making true BBQ with the same recipe and technique.
 
The last butt I did I injected with apple juice, cider vinegar and the rub I was using. Wifey said it was the best one i've made. I think being able to get some of the rub on the inside does add a bit of flavor.

smoker build 38 (1 of 1).jpg
 
I've found the most effective way to get flavoring from brine or injection is to wait until after you cook/pull the pork... ;)

Spray it with a mix of apple juice and rub and it'll add some really nice flavor without the pain of marinading/brining/injecting/etc...
 
I'm not getting up at 3:00 unless I can mop that butt proper!

Well that would definitely be an extra incentive to "get up" early.

But back to the pork, depending on where it as from most places get it already injected with a mix of things to increase the water weight so it won't absorb much more that you inject. The difference between ham, ham water added, boneless ham, formed ham and ham product are ridiculous - meat shouldn't have fine print.
 
Ok that makes sense. I wasn't trying for moisture with it, just penetrating the meat with more flavor.

My problem now is when to smoke it. I'd like it done for dinner when it's still fresh, but that means starting the thing very early in the morning, and then I can't mop it due to being at work. I have had good luck with mopping fairly often and I'd like to be able to do that, but I can't leave work every hour or so all day long.

If it were summer, I could hire my kid to do it for me. Maybe I should just let it hang out in the fridge until this weekend and do it right.

Really all you need is about 2-3 hours of smoke...that's all the favor you're gonna get out of it....that's as far as the smoke will penetrate the meat....see the smoke ring, that's the limit for smoke. After that, you just slow cooking, burning up wood, and running the risk of drying it out.

I dry rub, smoke a couple of hours, pull off the pit and double wrap in heavy foil. Into the oven at 225 for a few more hours...depends on how thick the cut was. Done. With a brisket, I also pour in a cup of strong black coffee.

Mopping? Not if I dry rubbed. If I dry rub, I wrap it and let it sit 12-24 hours to let the spices work into the meat. ( I think folks mop to keep it from drying out after a couple of hours...see above).

Here's a different style for pork butts, perfect for bad weather. Butt into a Crockpot set on LOW, big jar of whole dill pickles dumped on top (if you save your pickle brine from dills, just use that), put the lid on and cook until it's fork tender...all day. Take the lid off, throw away the pickles, pull and shred the butt, pour in a whole jar of chilli sauce and mix with the pickle juice, dump the meat back in and mix with the sauce. Kinda of the North Carolina style pork with thin tomatoe and vinegar suace. Gagged when I first read this recipe...now it's one of our most requested meats...different for Texas and really good....really simple.
 
View attachment 314628

Smoked a pork butt today today that turned out excellent. Friend at work did one last weekend using SPOG rub and it was great, so I wanted to try it myself. Everyone loved it. I enjoyed it plain better than with sauce.

1 1/2 Tbsp kosher salt
1 1/2 Tbsp ground pepper
1/2 Tbsp onion powder
1/2 Tbsp garlic powder
1/2 Tbsp smoked hot paprika

235 degrees and smoke for 5 hours. Double wrap in foil and cook til meat temp hits 205 degrees. Let set for an hour and pull aprart. Add any juices back to the meat. Yummmmm! Plenty of flavor!
 
I want to try this...
For Pork Butt we always smoke a Bone-In butt. The bone helps the butt in many ways and if you are not sure when it is done the bone will tell you. First rinse the butt and pat it dry, then wrap it in cellophane. Take a marker and mark the cellophane with a dot on the places you want to inject. I usually make a 1 1/2" grid. Mix up an injection made of the following:

•3 1/2 C Water
•3 TBSP Amesphos
•1/2 C Caro Syrup
•1/8 C Plowboy's Yardbird Rub, finely ground
•2 TSP Accent
•1/4 C Apple Cider Vinegar

Now inject the butt at the grid points. Let the butt rest in the refrigerator overnight. Take the butt from the refrigerator and pat it dry. Slather a thin coat of yellow mustard on the butt. Rub the butt with mixture of 2/3 cup Plowboys Yardbird rub and 1/3 cup of sugar. Place the butt in a 225* smoker. We use a combination of apple and cherry to smoke with. We usually add apple juice to a spritzer bottle and give the butt a spritz every 1 1/2 hours. When the butt gets to 160* pull the butt, sauce it thoroughly with Head Country BBQ Sauce and foil the butt. Put it back in the smoker until 180*. At 180* pull the butt from the smoker open the foil and put about an 1/8 of a cup of strained Stubbs Pork Marinade in the foil and fold it back up. Put it back into the smoker until 200*. Remove the butt and open the foil. Rest it for 15 minutes because we do not want it to cook any longer in the foil. Fold the foil back up and wrap it in a towel and rest it in a dry cooler for 1 1/2 hours and you are ready to serve. We usually pull chunks from the butt and glaze with some Head Country BBQ sauce thinned with a little Apple Juice and serve the money muscle as glazed slices.

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This is how we do it. You will see a lot of teams do it differently. You can always substitute you own favorite sauces and injection. Good luck with it.

FYI: We always use a Thermapen but you can always tell when a butt is done by tugging on the bone. It it turns and removes with minimal effort the butt is done.
 
When I am making my BBQ'd pork butts, I like to brine it in a molasses-based brine for a few days. After a dry-rub & smoking/cooking, it doesn't even need sauce.
 
Brine it marinade it sure! Smoke it mop it rub it you bet. I set my Masterbuilt as hot as it will go which says it is 275 but my thermometer says 250. I only rub with brown sugar and salt so it's versitile once cooked and the kids like it and it really lets the meat shine which I've learned over time. I don't use the water tray and cover it with tin foil so it's easy to clean I don't mop it or do anything. I would be worried not to be home to be adding chips every 30 minutes. I use cherry and Hickory. I don't wrap it and they always take 8 hours I think maybe 9 for the basic butt. Don't know why I make really usually just end up snacking them I take them to work and eat with cheese and tortillas for lunch. I'm sorry don't know why I'm rambling. marinate them they will be excellent likely better
 
If anyone is interested, here's my molasses brine recipe:

3/4 Cup molasses
12 oz. salt
3 qts. water

mix well

I usually let them brine for 3 days, although 2 will do. 4 is OK, but it gets salty. 5, no bueno, too salty.
 
Either Homer had an exceptionally long smoke or he forgot about this thread :p

I usually don't brine/marinade, but I have done a marinade with straight OJ overnight. Patted dry and rubbed with brown sugar, cumin, chili powder, and a healthy big of chipoltle powder. Smoked over apple and used for tacos that night. Was awfully tasty.
 
Marinades are used for flavor and tenderness. Since they contain an acid, they break down muscle fibers in tougher cuts of meat. Meat should be marinated in the refrigerator for 2-24 hours, depending on how tender the cut of meat is.

Brines are a salt and water solution used to retain moisture in grilled or smoked meats. Osmosis carries salt (and/or sugar) into the muscle cells, trapping moisture. When brining, make sure to submerge the meat completely. Basic brines consist of 1 cup salt per every 1 gallon of water.

the above is simply copied off a random site I googled, but wanted to point out the differences between marinades and brines for those that may not have known.
 
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