Cooking Pork Butt

[TF_Guest]

Just started smoking on my new Ironwood 850. I have watched several instructional YouTube’s on smoking Pork Butts. Several put container of water in grill while cooking. Do you recommend this?

 

[davwhite]

It is a yes and no answer, if you don't put it under it is not going to make much difference. Under it may but it would depend of temp. If you are cooking above the recommended temps then I would put the water under.

 

[primeone]

I've done a small bowl of water with brisket, but never with pork butt. Mostly because I spray it with apple cider every hour.

 

[YYCRed]

I am planning on doing one this weekend, following this recipe: https://www.meatchurch.com/blogs/recipes/pulled-pork
No water. Of course, it's all your choice. I don't think it will help anything, but it also won't hurt.

 

[Murphy's Law]

I love a good butt on the Traeger and have never used water. I usually spray about every 45 mins or so with apple cider vinegar or apple juice. There is some debate about if you should wrap or not and my personal preference is to wrap once IT is around 165 - 170 and put it in a foil pan.

 

[miguelb]

I use a tray of water and put it directly under the butt. This method catches the drips while also steaming the water.

Is it necessary? I don't think so. But I would recommend trying both method and see if it makes a different for you. Ideally, having a tray of water in there suppose to help with moisture so that the meat doesn't dry up but I am no expert to valid it. What I have heard is that having water in there can have an impact on the temperature in the grill. I try to put in warm or hot water to eliminate that.

 

[TheGrumpyGriller]

I've done a large number of briskets, butts, ribs, and other proteins and have never used a water pan. As others have noted, I have spritzed on occasion, but even then, I don't do that every time. It's one of the things I love about the Traeger is that we don't have to babysit many of the long cooks. Personally, I have zero interest in getting up at 3 AM to spritz an overnight butt or brisket.

All this being said, it certainly won't hurt. One last thing - take all of the time estimates in recipes (esp Traeger's site) with several grains of salt, as they are often off quite a bit !

Good luck and welcome to the forum!

 

[GrillMeister]

I used to use my Big Green Egg for pork butts, but have fine tuned it on the Ironwood 885. The butts go on the top rack and a drip pan full of water goes underneath. I don't wrap them either. Same as on the Egg, 225 till done.

 

[Timmmer]

Just like others have shared, I'm not much into babysitting either. I don't plan on using the spritz method with any of my cooks. However, most of the experts say that you should spritz or add a pan of water so I go with the pan of water. That being said, I forget to do probably half the time, but yet have had good results most of the time. We do use meat that has a lot of marbling, so that likely has contributed to our success. I would say it certainly won't hurt to have it.