Pork-butt price or Boston butt price Boston butt is typically priced between $1.79 and $2.29 a pound. Frequently, you can purchase it for 99 cents per pound while it’s on sale, in which case you ought to buy a lot. When the cost is so little and the benefits are so great, it’s not a big investment.
Where can I get a Boston butt for the cheapest price?
The best place to buy pork butts is a warehouse shop if you can’t get to a butcher. Really good products are available at places like Sam’s Club and Costco. These businesses struggle to carry complete shoulders, but they do have excellent pork butts. The Pork Butt are particularly fresh and often sold in a two pack.
For 100 people, how much Boston butt will I need?
That equates to 75 pounds of pre-cooked weight or 37.50 pounds of finished meat per person. Some people will eat more and some people will eat less, but 6 oz. is a quantity I’ve seen a lot of caterers mention. With 80 guests, I prepared pulled pork for my brother’s wedding, and 6 oz. turned out perfectly with about 3 pounds of leftovers.
What is a reasonable price for pig butt per pound?
Pork butts typically cost between $1.79 and $2.29 a pound on average.
However, occasionally, costs might drop as low as $0.99 per pound if you can find it while meat prices are low.
One of the most affordable and adaptable slices of meat on the market, pork butt is often offered per weight.
To get the greatest deals, purchasing in bulk at retailers like Costco and Sam’s Club is also a smart move because doing so frequently results in lower per-pound rates. Additionally, bone-in cuts frequently cost less.
Numerous things affect the cost. The location you live in, supply and demand in the market, the number of animals, and seasonality all have an impact on the final consumer costs.
There is a lot of flesh available per animal because the shoulder is a rather large cut. It is less common for quick family meals and restaurants due to the prolonged cook time.
What kind of pork is best for pulled pork?
For pulling purposes, pork shoulder is best. It has the ideal amount of fat, resulting in delicate, melt-in-your-mouth meat, but it must be cooked slowly to allow the protein to digest correctly. You might as well eat a pair of wellies if you take it out of the oven too soon. It’s up to you whether the flesh has the bone in, although Americans like the Boston butt cut of pork, which comes from the upper section of the shoulder. Some claim that having the bone in keeps the meat juicy, although plenty of supermarket shoulder is sold boneless, which is OK. Purchase the highest-quality meat you can afford, as always.
Try our simplest-ever pulled pork recipe, which doesn’t call for any challenging calculations or uncommon ingredients.
Pork Quality Grades
Although the USDA examines all pork for wholesomeness, it is rarely assessed for quality. Pork is “made from young animals that have been raised and fed to produce more consistently soft meat,” according to the USDA.
Pork is only rated into two categories when it is graded for quality (which is optional and paid for by the pork producer): “Acceptable” and “Utility.” According to the USDA, supermarkets only carry “acceptable pork;” Pork used for utility is typically seen in processed dishes.
Therefore, while purchasing pork butt, you don’t have to worry about quality grades, unlike when purchasing beef, where you must choose between USDA Prime, USDA Choice, and USDA Select, each of which has a distinct quality and price.
Whole, Untrimmed Pork Butt In Cryovac
Whole or half pig butts are sold separately at the grocery store; they are often boneless and have had most of the external fat removed.
This image depicts a regular supermarket pork butt. One 3.99-pound boneless roast, or almost half a butt, is included in the package. The label reads, “Priced at $2.79 per pound, or $1.99 per pound with the store’s club card, Pork ShoulderBlade Boston Butt Roast is boneless.
Whole pork butts are typically sold at the wholesale warehouse shop in Cryovac packing, two to a package, with the external fat in tact. Bone-in butts were once the norm at warehouse stores, but boneless butts are now more prevalent.
A typical Cryovac box of pork butts from a warehouse shop is depicted in these two images. It has two boneless roasts inside that weigh a combined 19.23 pounds. Over 9 pounds are put on each roast. The label reads, “Pork Shoulder, which costs $1.35 per pound and is boneless. These roasts cost the equivalent of $1.75 per pound after 4.5 pounds of fat were removed.
Prices will change significantly over time because pork is a commodity. When prices are low, warehouse retailers will sell a pound of bone-in pig butt for as little as $89 in total.
Because they are sold whole with the exterior fat in tact and are less expensive per pound, most customers will prefer pork butts from warehouse stores. The two-to-the-package you buy at the warehouse store also fits the bill because, while your cooker is on, you might as well cook two pork butts.
You can see why newcomers might believe they are getting a single, enormous pig butt by looking at the two photographs above! It’s difficult to distinguish between one roast and the other in the Cryovac package. This poses a challenge if you want to purchase roasts of the same size. Frequently, when you open the package, you’ll discover an 8-pound roast and a 6-pound roast, but you can’t tell this from the packaging’s appearance. Although it’s not a significant concern, the smaller roast will cook more quickly and needs to be taken out of the oven sooner than the larger one.
Weight
The majority of consumers pick 6- to 8-pound entire, untrimmed pork butts. This website’s Cooking Topics area assumes roasts in this weight range when featuring articles on pork butt. However, roasts outside of this range cook without a problem. Even pork butts weighing up to 10 pounds each are a favorite of certain competition barbecue teams.
Meat Characteristics
Pick pig butt that has a smooth, firm, white fat cap and plenty of fat marbling throughout the flesh. The meat should have a coarse grain and be reddish-pink in color.
When meat is sold in Cryovac, it can be challenging to evaluate these qualities. In truth, the lack of oxygen in the package may make the meat appear a little purple, but after it is exposed to air for a while, it returns to its natural reddish-pink hue. The pork butt from the warehouse store is packaged in Cryovac, while the pork butt from the supermarket is wrapped in plastic film.
The good news is that high-quality beef with the aforementioned qualities is typically sold in warehouse stores. Return the meat back the shop for a refund if you receive it home and discover it to be otherwise.
Bone-In or Boneless
Whether you choose bone-in or boneless pork butts, your barbecue will be excellent. Your only option may be boneless since bone-in seems to be getting tougher to locate at some warehouse stores, but that’s okay.
A pig butt is made up of a number of distinct muscles that come together at the shoulder. Connective tissue connects these muscles to the shoulder blade and holds them together. A pig butt with the bone in is therefore a fairly substantial piece of meat. Pork butts take on a more “relaxed form and are not as substantial as they were before the bone is removed. Because of this, the butcher will occasionally knot or net boneless pig butts to give them a more compact form and to make handling them on and off the cooker simpler.
Bone-in pork butts are typically preferred for two reasons. One is that a perfectly cooked roast’s bone is enjoyable to remove because it typically comes out cleanly and without any meat still attached. In this way, the bone functions as a built-in doneness indication. The meat near the bone is thought by some to taste better, which is the other justification. Since there is more fat and connective tissue close to the bone, which cooks the meat to add moisture and flavor, there may be some truth to this. Once the meat has been removed, seasoned, and combined for dishing, the impact is minimal.
Heat transfer to the interior of the roast is one thing the bone is not very good at. What Einstein Told His Cook author Robert L. Wolke claims that because bones are porous and generally dry, they do not conduct heat as well as the meat itself. Therefore, avoid cooking bone-in pork butts in the hopes that the bone will help the meat cook more quickly or evenly.
Avoid Enhanced Meat
To make the flesh more moist, water, salt, sodium phosphate, and other substances are frequently injected into pork butts sold in supermarkets. The majority of grillers steer clear of this augmented meat because they don’t appreciate paying for water instead of meat and because the meat can taste salty or hammy.
Reading the small text on the product label will help you determine whether the meat is enhanced. Look for a phrase that lists the solution’s ingredients and the proportion of solution put to the meat.
The image up top is a magnified version of the text on the pork butt from the grocery store that was earlier in this post. It says, “A solution of up to 12 percent water, salt, and sodium phosphates enhances tenderness and moistness. You are paying 95 for 7.7 ounces of solution if this 3.99-pound roast has 12 percent solution and sells for $1.99 per pound.
Advertisements that use the terms “always tender,” “moist and juicy,” “tender and juicy,” “guaranteed tender,” and “extra tender” are red flags indicating the meat has likely been improved.
Meat that hasn’t been boosted may have labels that read “all-natural” or “no additional ingredients,” or they may say nothing at all. The majority of entire pig butts in Cryovac are not improved; if they are, the packaging must be printed with the words “solution added.”
But what if you get meat from a butcher when it is not wrapped beforehand? Has the pork butt been improved, if so, how? You’ll need to speak with the butcher to learn more. If the meat has been improved, he or she should be able to show you a case box or the original Cryovac packing, which will have the “solution added” text on it.
If you must use enhanced meat, you might want to cut back on the salt in your rub since the meat has been somewhat salted during the injection process.
How is a Boston Butt purchased?
One of the four fundamental cuts of a hog is the pork shoulder. A primal cut is a piece of meat taken from the entire animal’s carcass. Retail cuts are created by further processing each primal cut. The Boston Butt, also known as Pig Butt, is the upper half of the pork shoulder, which weighs between 14 and 18 pounds, and the Picnic shoulder is the lower section. The Boston Butt is 68 pounds in weight. It is frequently used to make pulled pork because it is highly marbled, has a lot of connective tissue, and is. To prepare pulled pork, season the butt and smoke it for a long time at a low temperature to completely dissolve the connective tissue.
The Boston Butt’s market price does change over the course of the year. I always put them on sale when the market is weak. My clients are really grateful for it! I advise it to those who want to feed a sizable crowd. It is a sizable cut of beef that is inexpensive, produces a lot of meat, and requires little effort to prepare.
Always choose a Boston Butt with the bone when purchasing one for greater flavor.
So that it can render down while cooking, make sure it has a nice, even layer of fat on it (at least 1/4 inch). To ensure that your rub penetrates the meat thoroughly, ask your butcher to score the fat.
When cooked, the Boston Butt will weigh between 35 and 40 percent less than when it was raw. That is a result of the substantial amounts of fat and bone. An 8-pound butt will provide roughly 5 pounds of cooked meat and serve 10 to 12 people.
I also have the following advice.
Employ bear claw shredders! They are excellent for breaking apart the meat and helping to remove the butt from your smoker.
-Ensure that the internal temperature is between 195 and 200 degrees, then allow the animal to rest for 45 to 60 minutes. This will make sure that the bone can be easily removed and shredded.
-Prepare extra so there are leftovers! For leftover pulled pork, there are countless recipes.
10 pounds of pulled pork will create how many sandwiches?
Buy the greatest grade Boston butt, also known as pork shoulder, to start creating the tastiest pulled pork sandwich ever. This is a fatty cut that begs to be cooked slowly, and Lutonsky claims that if you use meat from a heritage pig like a Duroc or Berkshire, each bite will be unbelievably flavorfulalmost sweet. There are about 30 sandwiches worth of pork in a complete butt, which can weigh up to 10 pounds. If you change your mind about leftovers after learning that pulled pork gets better after a day in the refrigerator, prepare the entire meal. However, you can always request a smaller piece from the butcher. If your shoulder is bone-in, allow a few extra pounds (always a good choice, if available). As a heat conductor, the bone, according to Lutonsky, “will help produce a more uniform internal temperature throughout the cut of meat.
How do I prepare pulled pork for a crowd of 100?
For 100 people, how much pulled pork is needed?
- 100 pounds of raw pork, with one to three sides, will provide at least 50 pounds of cooked pulled pork for 100 people.
- With three or more sides, you’ll need 66.6 pounds of raw pork to feed 100 people at least 33.33 pounds of cooked pulled pork.