Foil Wrap or Not

[dh27564]

I'm doing pork butts at 250. Lots of tips I've found suggest wrapping the butts in foil at 160. Is this necessary? What's the reason for this? Quicker cooks?

 

[JPSBBQ]

Totally not necessary. That said, I absolutely wrap mine. I put it in a foil pan and wrap the top. This collects all the rendered juices. Once done, I run the juices through one of my fat separators and reincorporate them into the final pulled product. Results, juicier better tasting pork.

 

[MidwestSmoker]

It is called the stall. At around 160 degrees the temperature of the meat stops increasing because all the heat is going towards evaporating the moisture. As JPSBBQ said it is not necessary to wrap, but it is recommended particularly for briskets. Wrapping speeds up the cook and also preserves some of the moisture. But there are many here who skip the wrapping for pork butts.

 

[dh27564]

I appreciate the tips. Thank you!

 

[Timmy]

Here is a thread on the topic. Hope it helps!
Thread 'Pulled Pork Test This Weekend'
https://www.traegerforum.com/threads/pulled-pork-test-this-weekend.3472/

 

[dh27564]

The cook took quite a bit longer than I'd expected but I'm new to this and still learning. I had 3-5# pork butts on my Pro34 Traeger smoker. It took 5 hours to reach 160 and another 6 hours to hit 205. At 160, I put the 3 butts in a foil pan and pressed aluminum foil around all the sides of the meat. Added a cup of apple juice and returned the butts to the smoker. At 8 hours I cranked the temp to 275 and at 10 hours went to 300. The end result was smoky, tender, moist pork with a dark, crusty bark. I was using an inkbird probe to monitor the temperature. I also installed a thermometer on the side of the smoker so I could monitor the actual temperature inside. For the most part it seems the Traeger controller and my thermometer agreed. Thanks again to all of you.

 

[Slimpicker]

The cook took quite a bit longer than I'd expected but I'm new to this and still learning.

Butts can take as long as they want. I just did 2 overnight ones, didn't stall at all, buzzed right thru, but my cook was still 14.5 hours.

 

[RayClem]

The primary reason to wrap is to reduce the cook time. You can always wait out the stall period, but that can add several hours to your cook, especially if the piece of meat is large like a full pork butt or beef brisket.

If you start your cook early enough in the morning and plan for a late dinner, you might be able to wait out the stall. We normally eat an early dinner (around 5:00 pm), so even if I start to cook an 8# pork butt at 6:00 am, I need to wrap it at 160F if I want to pull it off at 205F by 4:00 pm so it can rest an hour before dinner. However, I normally cook at 225 F at grate level. I might need to set the controller at 240-250F to achieve the cook temp. I want.

Rather than wrapping, you can always do the first few hours of your cook at 225-250F and then bump up the temperature to 300-325F when you get close to the stall. That increases the amount of heat available to the cook so you will power right through the stall. There are always multiple ways of doing things. Most of the smoke is absorbed by the protein during the first few hours of the cook. Increasing temperature later in the cook will have very little affect on the smoke flavor.

If you are doing pulled pork, you might want the extra juices that wrapping in foil will capture. If you plan on slicing the pork, then it might not make any difference. Wrapping in butcher paper traps some moisture, but not quite as much as foil.

I like putting a pork butt in a foil pan and sealing the top with foil rather than wrapping tightly in foil. As you get close to finishing temperature, the butt will produce a lot of gelatin and fat. If you wrap tightly, those components cannot escape. If they have room inside a larger pan, the gelatin and fat will collect on the bottom of the pan. Then you can include as much or as little as you wish in the final product.

 

[HHI6818]

I watch a lot of Matt Pittmans YouTube videos and followed his no wrap pork butt. It was the best one i’ve done !!!

 

[DarienJim]

Do not need to unless you are running out of time and need to push thru stall.