How to Cook a Boston Butt for Pulled Pork Sandwiches

Usually dear hubby cooks the Boston Butt so I have never cooked one.  We had a huge one in the freezer and we will have our hunters here and pull pork sandwiches are quick and easy.

When I ask hubby if he was ready to cook the meat he said: "just put it in the crockpot."  I cut the Boston Butt in half because it was too big for the crockpot.  It is good that I have two crockpots! I have one cooking in the kitchen and one cooking in the laundry room.

How to Cook a Boston Butt for Pulled Pork Sandwiches

I used this to get an idea of how to cook the Boston Butt:

https://www.thespruceeats.com/slow-cooker-barbecued-boston-butt-3055502



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Ingredients

   1 (6- to 8-pound) Boston butt pork roast (bone-in or boneless)
   1/4 cup water (or beer, apple juice, or a mixture)
   Kosher salt (to taste)
   Black pepper (freshly ground, to taste)
   Optional: 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
   2 to 3 cups barbecue sauce

Put the pork shoulder in the slow cooker, cutting the roast to fit if necessary.

Add the water or other liquid and sprinkle the pork lightly with kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper, and cayenne pepper, if using.

Cover and cook on LOW for 7 to 9 hours.

Drain off the excess liquids, shred the meat with two forks, and discard any excess fat and bone.

Return the meat to the crockpot and pour about 1 cup of barbecue sauce over. Cover and cook another 1 to 2 hours.

Serve the shredded barbecued pork with extra barbecue sauce on the side.

It is called pull pork because it is shredded with two forks.



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After cooking the Boston Butt for nine or ten hours, it will look like this after we add barbecue sauce:



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I am looking forward to this when I serve it to the hunters:



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Anne, it looks wonderful.

I would have to agree with your husband.  I have never botched a pork roast by "just putting it in the crockpot."  What my Cuban friends have taught me is Picadillio as a spice.  It makes a wonderful Caribbean version of a pork sandwich.  

I would suggest when you drain the juices, save them and put in fridge.  When the fat hardens, lift it off and save for cooking.  The remainder of the juices can be added back to the pulled pork if more moisture is needed or used in a future soup or stew.

Looks like it will be delicious Anne!

Thanks, Jack and Tina for the suggestions and encouragement.

Dear hubby took over about 4pm yesterday.  He continued to cook it until about 7pm.

I took one half out early this and put in the crockpot to warm it up.  Dear hubby said to cook it until it reached 140' today as it had reach 160' yesterday.

About noon, he put it on the cutting board to shread it.

The part that was in the juices, he was able to make the pull pork. The other half he sliced since it would not shred.

I am happy the way it turned out.  

The other half of the original Boston Butt will go into the freezer for another time.  All we will need to do is heat it up and make pull pork again since it is already cooked.

Will, from "From My Kitchen to Yours," revealed some fiercely contested regional preferences for barbecue sauce in the Carolinas. He includes a map showing regions famous for ketchup- and mustard-based sauces (South Carolina), sauces with tomato sauce added (western North Carolina), and sauces with vinegar and crushed red pepper (eastern North Carolina):

Eastern Carolina BBQ Sauce - from my kitchen to your kitchen

My favorite, eastern North Carolina barbecue sauce is, imho, the perfect counterpoint for rich pulled pork. Not sweet - just spicy enough - and no ketchup . You can't buy it unless you're in Raleigh or therabouts - you gotta make your own!

It seems folks either love it - or hate it. I love it - my husband hates it, preferring a sweet ketchup-y sauce.

Will's recipe starts with pork from the grill, but another take on the Eastern North Carolina pulled pork theme has the sauce cooked with the pork - right in the crockpot:

Crock Pot NC Pulled Pork Recipe

mmmmmm.... just the best - and really different from typically sweet barbecued pork. Because my husband likes a sweet sauce, I follow Will's advice for making and storing my sauce and use the all-day crockpot method for cooking my pork. Then I just add my favorite sauce to my own serving.

Pulled pork is such a great meal to make that’s yummy and can last several meals! We just made it a couple days ago and have been enjoying it for lunch and dinner!

I have found that the instant pot is the easiest way to make pulled pork!! And this is my favorite recipe. https://recipeteacher.com/best-damn-instant-pot-pulled-pork/

The one thing that I do different from his recipe is that I dear the pork in my cast iron pan then put it in the instant pot and deglaze the pan pouring all the good stuff into the instant pot. The pulled pork only take an hour and a half to cook and it’s sooooo tender! I’m allergic to garlic and onion so I even made my own barbecue sauce this time that turned out great!

if you have a way to smoke the meat a whole lot of flavor can be added.,
here's a technique ive used
wash off meat
coat with a layer of dry rub which contains
1/2 cup of, raw sugar, 1/3 cup each of kosher salt and smoked paprika and garlic powder
tablespoon of onion powder
couple teaspoons of black pepper
teaspoon of cumin
1/2 teaspoon of both chilly powder and cayenne pepper
let it soak up these flavors overnight in fridge

get smoker going with lots of hot coals from white oak or another neutral type hardwood
add in some hickory wood, I use pieces cut about the size of hockey puck.
get temp venting set so meat can smoke at about 225-250 degrees

3 or 4 hours or till internal temp is about 165
wrap in foil and let it sit and rest a bit

Thanks to Stacey for the Instant Pot pulled pork recipe!

Here's our daughter's recipe for homemade barbecue sauce. This sauce is perfect for those who like a sauce that balances sweetness with lots of flavor.
It's a convenient, economical, and flavorful alternative to ready-made sauces - with lots of room for your own individual touch!

BBQ Sauce - makes ~two cups

1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup water
1/2 stick butter
1/2 cup ketchup
1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp cider vinegar
red pepper to taste

Melt the butter and cool it to room temperature.
Mix the paprika, chili powder, and brown sugar.
Add the water, ketchup, worcestershire sauce, and cider vinegar, mixing well.
Sprinkle in red pepper to taste, mixing well.
Use immediately or store, covered, in the refrigerator.

Janet, thanks for sharing about NC BBQ.  We lived a short time in NC near Fayetteville.  I remember people talking about which area had the best BBQ.

We rarely eat so I never got to taste NC BBQ.

Stacey, We eat the pulled pork for a few days, then when we run out of buns I freeze the pulled pork.

I freeze my buns in small portions since there are only two of us.

Bruce, I know it tastes better smoked.  We have a smoker but DH doesn't feel like using it anymore. Especially now that he got off the pain meds due to covid.

Thanks everyone for helping make this a fun thread!

Personally I like the low and slow method of cooking the meat.  The crock pot gets too hot.  Use 19 quart a roaster with water bath, meat bagged in a roaster bag and then cook with the water bath in the 180 to 190 degree range.  It never boils.  Cook time is typically 18 to 24 hours.  Seasonings and about 3 cups of pineapple juice go in the bag with the meat with no added water.  If done right the meat is so tender you can't cut it cross grain as it falls apart if you try.  Shredded ham is another fun version here.

I use a Insta-pot now for making my pulled pork the speed of the pressure cooking  for me really helps in meal prep. It is great for ribs too.  I had never heard of vinegar based BBQ sauces till I spent time in the Low Country of SC. very diffferent from the tomato based sauces I grew up with. I pressure can pulled pork with a tomato based sauce, maybe this year I'll try some with the vinegar, honey, red pepper sauce recipe I stole while in SC.

C. Letellier wrote:Personally I like the low and slow method of cooking the meat.  The crock pot gets too hot.  

The newer crock pots tend to be this way of being too hot. I use the trick of getting the crock pot hot and then turning it down by putting the crock pot on warm and then back up to the low setting.  Of course this take watching ...

Like Robert, I am now using the Insta-Pot.