Boston Butts - I smoke these guys each and every item I've cooked them. Now I'm in a bit of a quandary. I'm cooking two 9.5 pounders at the end of the month on a golfing trip. I won't be able to take my smoker, so I'm forced to use the oven. I will brine them at least 12 hours, rinse, dry, and apply my rub liberally. My plan is to put them on about 1 a.m. in aluminum pans, uncovered, at 225F to 250F. I'll probe them and plan on getting the internal to 195-200F. We'll have these around 6 p.m. the following day, so 15 or so hours of cooking. For those that have done the low and slow in the oven, how does this sound?
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I think it sounds good. You might look into putting some "liquid smoke" in your brine to get the smoke flavor. Just a thought. How many will you do at once? I believe it is about 1 1/2 hours per pound at 250, so 15 hours might be a little long.
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Jamie - where is the golf trip? Home Depot delivers!!
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Ovens can be very dry heat. I'd cover them to keep them from drying out, then pull the foil for the last hour and crank the heat up to like 350-375 to create a bark.:-)
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+1.
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Jamie..... Consider this: We have a local BBQ joint with a large outdoor smoker. They smoke butts once a week, and freeze the majority of them once cooked. Then, each morning, they take out the number they require for the day, and reheat them in the oven (enclosed in heavy duty foil to preserve the juices). I cannot tell any loss of flavor or quality on the meat. You might consider smoking them beforehand, and freezing. and just an FYI, I often "finish" the butt(s) I'm smoking by placing in a pan, pouring a Pepsi into the bottom of the pan, sealing tight with heavy duty foil, and placing in the oven for about an hour at 350 degrees.

Good luck, however you proceed!
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My wife did something similar as we're making pulled pork for Nathan's graduation. She did 14 of these bad boys as we have to have food for close to 250 people expected to come through the open house. It came out really good. Got my fingers smacked with a wooden spoon for coming through to "sample" some more.
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I like a good oven-baked butt, I would agree that perhaps you might want to cover it,
but I'd only cover for 2/3 of the time, a butt wants to have a LOT of fat burned off the
outside to give it flavor, since the oven-butt has less robust flavor. I LIKE IT, but do
prefer it smoked. I grew up eating oven butts. My mother never smoked one, and we
had em once a month.
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Lots of great suggestions, guys! I believe my-older-brother-from-another-mother, Cliff, has hit on something. I do believe I'll smoke them both this Sunday and freeze them to reheat on our trip. I'll wrap them good and reheat in the oven until the inner temp comes back up. The best of both worlds.
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Plus one brother. I have done this in the past. Not to that enormous scale, but enough for 30 people. I used those ziplock pump vacuum bags. They worked wonders.
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Just seal them up good in foil (or in a pan with foil sealed around it) and reheat in the oven. If you are reheating from a frozen state, I'd say heat on a lower temp, and you probably don't need the moisture of a Pepsi inside the foil. I only do that when I put them in the oven fresh off the grill. I usually cook extra butt(s) when I fire up the smoker, and pull one or more apart (while hot) into larger chunks (usually where the butt normally separates into muscle groups). I then freeze the chunks in smaller bags for later use when it's just my wife and I. That way, I don't have to thaw out a whole butt for bbq for only two people. One advantage of this for your situation might be that you can pull the fat and grease off the butt easier while it's hot (or warm), and you can also thaw out in smaller packets as you assess the needs.

I usually shred the meat once it's thawed, and steam it to the heated state I desire by using a heated griddle and pouring water as needed into the meat to steam (keeping it turned, and regulating heat so I'm not cooking the meat again. I'm a stickler for NOT heating meat with sauce in the meat, so I usually heat my sauce separately and spoon it over the meat as the eater request.

Enjoy some burnt-ends off the meat as you go. We all know how important quality control testing is for a Grillmaster! :-)
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:-)
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lapsang souchong tea.
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