Fat cap up or down

[Rad Rich]

Hey guys,
Dumb old question smoking a butt in the am fat cap up or down. I have gone up on the past I have a friend that says I should go cap down as it will kind of seal the bottom of the butt and keep juices in. What do you guys think?

[beefmann]

fat up... aids in adding  juices into the meat

[GusRobin]

Hey guys,
Dumb old question smoking a butt in the am fat cap up or down. I have gone up on the past I have a friend that says I should go cap down as it will kind of seal the bottom of the butt and keep juices in. What do you guys think?

Yes
By that I mean if you ask 100 people you will get 50 say up and 50 say down. I recommend you pick one way and take notes and then next time do the other way and see want is good for you

[pokermeister]

I cut the fat cap off, yesterday the cap was almost 1/2 in thick in places (in smoker now). I have taken the cap off before and not noticed a difference in "juicyness" of the pork shoulder. Just my 2 cents. :D

[Keymaster]

I lean my fat cap to the left because the world spins to the right thus causing the fat cap to juicify the meat through inertia :o But I really do fat cap up :)

[OU812]

On a pork butt I remove all the fat cap,,,,theres plenty marbling in there to keep it moist

With no fat cap I keep all the bark

[FLBentRider]

Fat cap down or removed.

[Tenpoint5]

Fatcap up but cut with a crisscross pattern

[Rad Rich]

I did what I normally do cap up and nice deep cross cross cuts. I forgot how to add pictures. Gonna start around 1:00 am outside in north west Indiana. We are supposed to get snow or freezing rain. Yikes. I have a small suncast cabinet with a steel chimney just a little bigger than the smoker. I love it had the Bradley in there for the last two years. Always get nice high temps.

[TMB]

Fatcap up but cut with a crisscross pattern

I do the same thing.  Tenpoint5 told me about this a while ago and have been doing ever since.

I have 72 butts cook in infrared and 5 low and slow in my OBS, all but two of them have been cross cut.

Works great and if your using an infrared cooker helps out that much more.

[TedEbear]

Hey guys,
Dumb old question smoking a butt in the am fat cap up or down.

I just smoked one earlier today.  My method is to cut off the fat cap prior to smoking.  It's less junk that I have to pick out and remove after I shred it.