I always use pork butt for pulled pork but am wondering if pork shoulder is
a reasonable substitute?
Any cons with using shoulder?


--
Lew/+Silat

Lew/+Silat wrote:
I always use pork butt for pulled pork but am wondering if pork
shoulder is a reasonable substitute?
Any cons with using shoulder?


--
Lew/+Silat

Only pros. The butt is half of the shoulder. The picnic (recently
mis-named the "shoulder" by the new marketing types) is the other half
of the shoulder.

BOB

"Lew/+Silat" wrote in message
...
I always use pork butt for pulled pork but am wondering if pork shoulder
is
a reasonable substitute?
Any cons with using shoulder?

Just a waste of money and cooking time unless you can buy whole shoulders at
really good price. Boston butt is the upper portion of the shoulder and
contains smaller bones and less gristle. The Picnic is the lower end of the
shoulder and won't give you as much meat as the butt end. In competition,
other than MIM which requires whole shoulder, you normally see only Boston
butt being cooked.

But if you've got a hankerin' for cooking a whole shoulder, go for it. Do it
once just to see the difference otherwise you'll never know for sure...

One thing about the picnic cut not mentioned so far, is that the picnic
has a rather large fat cap around most of it. What I found was that
this kinda keeps the smoke from getting into the meat. The fat is great
as a basting agent, so what I did for my last one was to remove that
fat cap, then rub the meat. I sliced the cap into strips and put a few
pieces on top of the meat. After each charge of woodchips, I turned the
meat and added a fresh chunk of fat. What was left of the old stuff was
basically bacon. I use a water pan smoker, and I didn't get any
flareups from dripping grease. The flavor was really incredible.
The downside to it is that it does take longer to cook, much more so if
you can get a whole shoulder or a very large picnic. One time I had to
finish a biggie off in the oven because ( don't shoot me....) I ran out
of charcoal and couldn't keep the heat up in what was left.

On 16-Apr-2005, Bubbabob wrote:

"Lew/+Silat" wrote:

I always use pork butt for pulled pork but am wondering if pork
shoulder is a reasonable substitute?
Any cons with using shoulder?



You are somewhat confused about the nature of pork cuts. The butt is the
upper half of a shoulder. The picnic is the lower half of a shoulder,
either or both together are ideal for barbecue.

I've done both. They both pull nicely and both have a decent texture.
Today's
trivia is that you pay for bone in the shoulder and for bone and extra fat
both in
the picnic. The upside with the picnic is that the skin and fat crisp up
nice
and after chopping and mixing with the pulled pork, you end up with a very
nice product. I couldn't cut or chop that skin with a normal knife. I had to
use a heavy cleaver ( 1-1/4#) on a throwaway cutting board.

Brick (Keep the shiny side up)

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Brick wrote:
The upside with the picnic is that the skin and fat crisp
up
nice
and after chopping and mixing with the pulled pork, you end up with a
very
nice product.

I guess I need to crank up the heat some on mine. That damned skin is nearly
inedible when I cook a picnic.

But then again, I never could cook anything on a grill but hot dogs.

--
Fosco Gamgee Whitfurrows
and his 6" boner

On 16-Apr-2005, "F.G. Whitfurrows" wrote:

Brick wrote:
The upside with the picnic is that the skin and fat crisp
up
nice
and after chopping and mixing with the pulled pork, you end up with a
very
nice product.

I guess I need to crank up the heat some on mine. That damned skin is
nearly
inedible when I cook a picnic.

But then again, I never could cook anything on a grill but hot dogs.

--
Fosco Gamgee Whitfurrows

Fos, nobody in their right mind would try to eat that skin by itself. But it

has real flavor if you chop it up pretty good and mix it in with the
rest of the pulled pork. You need to get it to near hamburger
consistency.

Brick (Keep the shiny side up)

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"Lew/+Silat" wrote in message
...
I always use pork butt for pulled pork but am wondering if pork shoulder is
a reasonable substitute?
Any cons with using shoulder?


--
Lew/+Silat

a picnic is at least a buck a pound cheaper but there is more throw away
blubber, gristle and such otherwise its practicly the same as a butt