By Dylan Clay
A safe estimate for how much pulled pork to offer is:
The calculators below are for both uncooked and cooked pork butt (boneless).
Pork butt will lose roughly 40-50% of its weight when cooked.
- If you’re smoking the pork butt – use the uncooked weight calculator.
- If you’re buying from a caterer – use the cooked weight calculator.
*This calculator assumes a 50% weight loss.
If you’re making pulled pork sandwiches, 4 oz fits perfectly on a bun and leaves enough room for:
The picture below also uses a large King’s Hawaiian sweet roll, which are huge:
Another factor to consider is the weight of the blade bone (scapula) found in bone-in pork butts.
The above calculator is based on a bone-less pork butt.
Pork butts typically weigh anywhere from 4 to 10 lbs and the blade bone will weigh anywhere from 0.5 to 0.75 lbs.
This entire article has been based on the Pork butt or Boston butt. Some folks might consider using the picnic roast instead.
In my opinion, the Boston butt is superior in terms of taste due to the fat marbling.
There are also differences in taste and texture – the picnic tastes more like ham.
You could even equate these differences to white and dark meat on chicken – dark meat being more forward. Pork butt is fairly neutral and takes really well to barbecue and vinegar sauces.
The picnic will typically offer you less yield too.
They’re almost always sold with the bone-in, sometimes skin on (which needs to be removed), and just like pork butt, will experience moisture loss.
