British BBQ Society Forums

Forgive me if this has been already spoken about but I couldn't find any information. I just wondered if you had a lets say a pork shoulder joint off the bone and its going to take about 8 hours or more to cook, if you cut the joint in half would that reduce the cooking time by half so you could do both halves in 4 hours

Would'nt take that for granted. The boston butt ( Neck-end pork shoulder) has a blade bone inside and that helps it cook. Take that away and it may take longer.

Eddie

It's a real problem - the answer is 'yes and no'.

The cooking time for any joint is primarily decided by its weight. For example, you roast a chicken in the oven at 190C for 20 minutes per pound + 20 minutes. That's pretty standard, irrespective of size, with the only variatioon being the +20 minutes, as necessary.

But common sense dictates that, for some cooking methods, as long amount of time is needed to break down certain connective tissue, and that's true whether it's in a large piece of meat or a small one.

In short, if you're cooking a smaller piece of meat, and you think the calculated cooking time looks too short to get it lovely and tender, but the meat will be overdone if you cook it for longer, you need to either lower the temperature, or buy a bigger piece of meat.

Steve W

In reality, it's not weight, or 'size' that determines how long a joint takes to cook - it's the thickness. Yes, with a standard cut weight/size will correlate well to this, but if you're going to cut it in half, it comes down to how exactly you're going to cut it.

I didnt think about the thickness. Cheers guys