Hey smokers (pork butt)

Im going to smok a butt today to. Ring camping this weekend. My question is do i pull it before I head up nort or leave it whole until i get ready to chow down? And whats the best way to reheat with a campfire?

I’ve always pulled mine first and transported later. Why? Just seemed the right thing. Be curious if others have success in the reverse order. Wonder if the meat will be too tight to pull when it’s been chilled?

Fire – foil pan and cover the top with foil. Put a bit of liquid in to keep things moist and not char to the bottom of the pan. I’m sure you’ll have options available. Probably not a ton of direct heat so you’re warming not frying/grilling.

I would pull it right away. I did like eight for my nieces grad party a few years ago and thought I would pull it morning of. It was no where near as easy and ended up shredding it more after it got warm in the roaster. Also if you wanna remove the big chunks of fat it a lot easier when fresh and hot.

Depends how long your holding it for. If you double wrap the butt in foil, then wrap in a few towels and put in a cooler, it will likely stay piping hot for a number of hours.

But if you are talking about holding over night or reheating a few days later I’d pull it ahead of time and put it in a freezer bag. Like patk said, save all the juice from the meat(either just keep it in the same bag or put it in a separate container) and drizzle it over the meat as you heat it up in a pan.

I think you have two options for heating it up. Do what patk said and heat it up in a covered pan, probably over low-medium heat(not ripping hot), just to get the meat up to a hot temperature again. Could do this in one big batch probably.

Or, do it carnitas style, which means adding some color/crispiness to that pork! I think the legit way to do carnitas is to slow-cook/smoke your pork, but then to more or less sear it a bit in a hot pan with lard.

CARNITAS

Heat about 1 tablespoon of oil in a non stick pan or cast iron skillet over high heat. When pan is hot, add pork in batches of two or three, and sear until just beginning to crisp. Ladle over about 1/2 cup of left over liquid, and continue cooking until the juices begin to reduce down and the meat is nice and crispy!

Pulled pork reheats better than just about any other type of smoked meat, so you likely won’t notice much of a difference in taste or quality!

I did about 250# for my wedding. Take it out when done, wrap it up, let it rest in a foe cambro(cooler) for an hour or two. Pull it save all of your drippings. Another option for warming if you have a vacuum sealer is to pack in vacuum bags, and drippings, refrigerate or freeze, then sou vid style with a pot of boiling water and leave it in the vac bag.

What everyone else said. Pull it. Put dripping back in. Reheat. Enjoy.

Smoke,wrap,put in cooler for 3ish hrs,then pull..I do a lot of them…part of 200lbs I did last weekend..

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Yup, pull it now, it reheats well and then you don’t have to do anything but reheat it when camping. Try and catch the juices and use them, but if not I like a mix of BBQ and apple cider to help keep it overly moist. Everyone eating it should need a towel imo

Ok great, thanks for all the feedback! Its at 193° now i will pull it off at around 203-205° and after a nice rest i will pull it tonight thanks!

catnip wrote:

Ok great, thanks for all the feedback! Its at 193° now i will pull it off at around 203-205° and after a nice rest i will pull it tonight thanks!

Waiting too long IMO. Result will either be mushy or dry at 205. I pull at 195 knowing it will continue to cook during the rest.

I haven’t noticed any difference between pulling at 195-205. If anything, pulling later may have been better. I think the whole key is letting it rest for at least an hour.

I usually get mine off the heat around 201, but I have mine wrapped in foil from 165 or so on.

The key to the finished temperature is when has the collagen broken down. At 195 if the bone slides out clean, or a fork poked into the thickest portion of meat twists easily and separates the fibers( pulls) it’s done. If not go let it go higher in temp 200-205, so it does. A bad cut it will never happen. Had one of those couple of weeks back.

I picked up a couple of Cambro holding cabinets off Craigslist a number of years ago. Best thing I ever did. Far better than a cooler and towel trick plus they hold a lot more. I pull pork butts off the smoker between 205 and 210. I pan my pork butts when they hit around 165. 2 butts to a pan and I usually do 4 pans at a time so a total of 8 butts. I pour a bottle of dark beer in the bottom of each pan. The fat and collagen really start to break down around 165 so you are catching all that juice in a pan and it mingles with the beer. I do not cover the pans at this time.

When the butts reach temp of 205 or so I pull them off cover the pan with foil and put in the Cambro. They sit there overnight and I pull the next day. Nice because after 12 hours or so of cooking I don’t have to start pullling 80lbs. of pork butts. I’ve let them in there for as long as 14 hours and they still probe at about 140. They nearly pull themselves after resting that long and they are always super juicy. Once you start pulling them they reabsorb all that beer and juice. Delicious. Then I vacuum seal in bags of about 3lbs. each and freeze.

Pulled pork is very forgiving. I would pull before and bag it. If all you have is a campfire I would put it in a foil pouch with some liquid. Apple juice or pork broth and put it off to the side of the coals and let it warm flipping it once in awhile. Should be good to go!