BBQ Pork Butt - Sous Vide & Smoking

Hi all,

I've got lots of pork for a BBQ next week and I was looking at cooking options.

My Green Mountain smoker is great, but having experienced the problems of stalling meat and so on in the past I was hoping to use a foolproof sous-vide/smoking technique to avoid the situation where everyone is waiting around for some stubborn meat!

I've got a 2.5kg pork butt and I was thinking of doing something along the lines of 60-65C for 48hrs sous-vide, chill, then rub/smoke for 3-4hrs before serving similar to the ribs technique, do you think this will achieve a decent bark? Doing it this way would certainly make things much easier!

I'm also going to do belly & ribs, equilibrium brined followed by 60C for 48hrs and some beef short ribs

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Brendan_Lee_56950

I love sous vide pork butt but if you want to do it all traditionally you can power through the stall using the texas crutch

http://amazingribs.com/tips_and_technique/texas_crutch.html

You may or may not be ridiculed by BBQ purists but those that laugh just don't get any food right?

olicollett83

Yeah I have used the crutch before, but i think with the way my timing will work out it'll be tricky to do it in time unless i do an overnight cook which isn't really ideal. I would also have the issue of using the smoker to do a final cook of the beef ribs/pork ribs which would want to be at a lower temperature of around 80C when the pork butt is going to want smoking at 110-120C

Brandon_Byrd_40557

Whether or not you'll get good bark depends a lot on the temperature at which you smoke. If you're doing it ChefSteps style (where you smoke in a humid environment at a temperature equal to or lower than the SV cook step) you won't really develop a super crusty bark. But if you're going to smoke at traditional temps (around 225F / 110C) then you can develop bark in a shorter amount of time. Part of bark-formation involves partial dehydration of the surface of the meat, so you don't get that at lower temps/higher humidity.

You mention in your last post that you could finish the cook using a smoker at higher temps, and that's what I'd do if going for a more traditional texture/bark. Since everything is already cooked, the smoking is really just a flavoring step. You won't need to worry about cooking the pork butt at a higher temperature than the ribs; I'd just do everything at 80C or so and throw the butt on earlier so that it has a chance to dry out a bit and have a crust start forming before you throw the ribs on.