![big minion butt big minion butt](http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/QBWxQh7AhFM/0.jpg)
I ran the WSM at 275-300☏, adjusting the 3 bottom vents as needed to keep the temp in that range. I opened the top vent fully and left it that way throughout the entire cook. I started with the 3 bottom vents at 100% open. I assembled the cooker, immediately filled the water pan from above with hot tap water, and placed the pork butt onto the top cooking grate. I lit 40 briquettes using a Weber chimney starter and spread them over the unlit briquettes and smoke wood. I fired the WSM using the Minion Method, filling the charcoal chamber to the top with unlit Kingsford Charcoal Briquets and nestling two large chunks of apple smoke wood and one large chunk of cherry smoke wood into the unlit charcoal. I applied Bad Byron’s Butt Rub to the pork butt, refrigerated it overnight, and applied a bit more rub before putting it in the WSM. You’re now ready to apply your favorite rub and cook the split butt using whatever method you like. Once you’ve split the butt into two separate pieces, trim away any excessive areas of fat and weird bits like blood vessels or glands. The pork butt shown here started out weighing 10.17 pounds with the bone in. The two pieces won’t be exactly even, but that’s OK, don’t worry about it. I used a 10″ cimeter knife to make this cut. With fat cap, false cap, and bone removed, cut the pork butt in half lengthwise as shown in these two photos. You can watch me remove the fat cap and false cap from a pork butt in this video. If you’ve got a bone-in butt, it’s easier to do this before removing the bone. I would urge you to remove the fat cap and false cap from the pork butt. Deboning a pork butt is kind of a tricky process, as shown in my How NOT To Debone A Pork Butt video, but if you’re comfortable using a sharp boning knife I’d encourage you to give it a try. You can purchase one at the supermarket, or you can debone a butt yourself. To split a pork butt into two pieces, you need a boneless butt. This video demonstrates the preparation and cooking process described in this article. Cutting a butt into two separate pieces versus a single large piece creates more surface area and is, I think, easier to manage on the cooking grate. I have seen photos of butterflied pork butts, opened up like a book along the long or short edge, resulting in a single large piece of meat. To me, splitting a pork butt into two pieces makes the most sense. too much bark and not enough inside meat, and perhaps not enough room to arrange the pieces on the cooking grate. Of course you can split a pork butt into three or four pieces but at some point there are diminishing returns, e.g. You can split a pork butt in different ways, but to maximize surface area you want to cut it in half lengthwise across its width, as shown in this diagram. That they can test without bodies, am I right? It was about working out the higher level mathematics of calculating the correct combinations of butts in seats.Splitting a boneless pork butt before cooking creates more delicious outside bark (more surface area = more bark) and promotes faster cooking. It has nothing to do with the ride itself. I now understand why they have to do tech rehearsals on these things. I really felt for the employees who were so green at this ride that they struggled horribly with their clipboards to try to figure out how to properly fill up the rows of seats. But you describe it just exactly as I remembered it. I enjoyed reading your description of the ride, because it matched my experience as I detailed it in my trip log - practically word for word.
![big minion butt big minion butt](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LTJie344l5o/hqdefault.jpg)
I had the extreme thrill of lucking into being one of the test-riders on the very first day of technical rehearsals for this ride in Florida back in early June 2012.