What cut of meat do you use when making pulled pork?

get yourself a nice boston butt. smoke that shit. mop that shit in a vinegar-based sauce. pull that shit. put that shit on a bun with some coleslaw. eat that shit.

It's not really the butt. That's basically ham. Pork is everything from the waist forward. Ham is everything from the waist back. Butt is the part above/in front of the shoulder.

You must not eat much BBQ. A pork "butt" as a cut of meat, actually refers to the shoulder. Your question doesn't make sense.

can't fathom eating butt wrote:

Pork shoulder or butt? I can't find a boneless shoulder anywhere but can't fathom the other option.

Let me guess, you "BBQ" your meat on a Weber for 25-40 minutes, then cover it in Bullseye bbq "sauce". Right?

................... wrote:

Let me guess, you "BBQ" your meat on a Weber for 25-40 minutes, then cover it in Bullseye bbq "sauce". Right?

Nope- use cider vinegar, molasses, brown sugar, etc. Have always cooked it on stove top on low/simmer for several hours and hand pulled it. But I have only ever used boneless pork shoulder. Never once a butt.

Vinegar-based sauce?!? No way, it has to be a sweet sauce like we do it in KC.

Does it really matter which part you use anyway? I assume as long as you cook and season it right it'll all turn out the same. I always thought that the only difference in anything pork is how its prepared, seasoned, or cured.

................... wrote:

can't fathom eating butt wrote:

Pork shoulder or butt? I can't find a boneless shoulder anywhere but can't fathom the other option.

Let me guess, you "BBQ" your meat on a Weber for 25-40 minutes, then cover it in Bullseye bbq "sauce". Right?

Let me guess, you are a condescending know it all twat whose BBQ is a legend in his own mind. Right?

BBQ elitists make me sad.

Worse than scotch snobs. Worse than microbrew snobs.

How are you going to cook it? Smoke it? Crock pot?

Surprise! wrote:

How are you going to cook it? Smoke it? Crock pot?

Neither, really. I always simmer it for several hours (5-6 hrs) on the stove top (over flame not electric) at a very low setting with chopped onions, olive oil and a bit of vegetable broth. I replace the vegetable broth as it boils off every 20-30 mins. It really browns the meat up nicely, keeps it juicy and very tender. The outside of the meat carmelizes over time and the meat literally falls apart.

Other tried and true suggestions for cooking pulled pork?

amcr wrote:

................... wrote:

Let me guess, you "BBQ" your meat on a Weber for 25-40 minutes, then cover it in Bullseye bbq "sauce". Right?

Let me guess, you are a condescending know it all twat whose BBQ is a legend in his own mind. Right?

Yes, absolutely I am. Although I make no claim to be a BBQ legend myself.

And I will not apologize for demanding that people who grill stop calling it BBQ, or that people know that a butt is a shoulder cut, or for turning my nose up at people who buy sauce from a store or believe that sauce comprises more than 3% of what good BBQ should be. In fact, if your BBQ even needs sauce, it's a joke. I also look down upon anyone who BBQs beef.

I hate fake BBQ like people on this board hate vibram 5 fingers. And I own my feelings.

................... wrote:

Yes, absolutely I am. Although I make no claim to be a BBQ legend myself.

And I will not apologize for demanding that people who grill stop calling it BBQ, or that people know that a butt is a shoulder cut, or for turning my nose up at people who buy sauce from a store or believe that sauce comprises more than 3% of what good BBQ should be. In fact, if your BBQ even needs sauce, it's a joke. I also look down upon anyone who BBQs beef.

I hate fake BBQ like people on this board hate vibram 5 fingers. And I own my feelings.

I'm with you most of the way, except for the beef comment. Not a brisket fan?

I used to trade livestock and meat futures in Chicago. It was my first job after college and running. The butt is part of the shoulder, but more precisely described it is a cut from the back of the neck. It is the cut between the loin (from where pork chops derive) and the head. It does have a blade bone in it, and is considered a relatively "rough" cut of meat with some fat and gristle in it. Prices spike when chains run specials on pork butts, which are popular in the Hispanic community. When loin prices are proportionally high relative to butts, packers bend the rules and set cutting instructions as to make the butts shorter than usual and the loins longer. This is not a customer pleasing move, and when loin/butt spreads were large, the complaints about "kite shaped" butts were rampant (they should be square cut). When butts are cheap, sausage and processed meat companies de-bone them. Their crews work hard when butts are cheap.

The shoulder cut, i.e, the one with shoulder joint in it, is known as the pork shoulder picnic. Picnics are also used in pork BBQ, and they can be even fattier than butts. Hormel uses picnics to make Spam, mixing lean trimmings in to hit their lean standards.

Both picnics and butts are sold boxed, but packers like the orders from meat processors where they are packed in bins.

I occasionally used to speculate in cuts such as pork butts, but these kind of cuts in 40,000 lb truckloads tie up a lot of capital, and I would only do so if prices were super, super cheap. Same with loins and small hams (14 lbs and down, which are Holiday magnets). Bellies were almost always hedged, and I cannot recall speculating on them.

I knew a few hog buyers in Iowa - an educated group, believe it or not - and their favorite BBQ cut was boneless ham. They were snobs about it and wouldn't think of butts or picnics. Yields were better on a 26 pound ham (that is the fresh weight), so they would make a lot, boning it first and then putting it in cook ready netting, slow cooking the things all day long. I never liked pork that much, but this meat was fantastic. Lean, and without any of the preservatives of processed ham. I agree with the vegetable broth suggestion above - there's nothing that can go wrong with it.

They would also net and slow cook pork "steaks". This is a small very lean cut of meat at the top of the belly (the bacon cut). They are small cuts but incredibly lean. The price zooms up when McDonalds sells McRibs, because that is the cut Mickey D's principally uses. Ham is a much better deal, however. A slow cooked boneless ham could feed an entire cross country team.

I liked trading a lot and made considerable money, although luck was involved. I couldn't see doing it long term, though, and took the money and went to graduate school. I miss the fun, believe it or not. And since trading stopped at 4 pm, I ran every night at 6 - a nice schedule if one could put up with getting up at 4:30 am. And there truly is a world market for protein. When one tries to come up with correlations between beef chucks and pork butts (analogous cuts) and then make money off that information, well, the point hits home. (Hogs were more fun than cattle - things move faster).

I'm no pork expert, but Boston Butt is what I always use in the crock pot and it shreds up beautifully.

I just throw the shoulder/butt in the crock with a little onion, come back 10 hours later, shred it up, add whatever cheap bbq sauce I found at the Amish bent and dent store and eat away.

One of my favorites is Famous Dave's Apricot Bourbon bbq sauce. At 85 cents a bottle, I bought all they had.

SAYS RIGHT ON THE BOTTLE IT WON 1ST PLACE!!

Steven R. wrote:

................... wrote:

Yes, absolutely I am. Although I make no claim to be a BBQ legend myself.

And I will not apologize for demanding that people who grill stop calling it BBQ, or that people know that a butt is a shoulder cut, or for turning my nose up at people who buy sauce from a store or believe that sauce comprises more than 3% of what good BBQ should be. In fact, if your BBQ even needs sauce, it's a joke. I also look down upon anyone who BBQs beef.

I hate fake BBQ like people on this board hate vibram 5 fingers. And I own my feelings.

I'm with you most of the way, except for the beef comment. Not a brisket fan?

The beef comment may have been overboard. As an Eastern Carolina devotee, I don't personally BBQ beef. But begrudgingly acknowledge it can be good when done by people who know how to do it.