How to Wrap Pork Butt: In Aluminum Foil or In a Pan (with Pictures!)

If you’re using an aluminum pan, click here to jump to my method.

If you’re just using foil and no pan, follow the steps below.

1. If you’re using the big sheets of heavy duty aluminum foil, simply lay out two layers of aluminum foil.

I only had regular aluminum foil.

To compensate, I used two layers of an arms-length of aluminum foil (4 sheets total), and overlapped them in the middle.

Spritz the foil with water or beer, ACV, juice, etc.

Regular foil is cheap and has a tendency to tear – the extra layer is there in case this happens.

2. Place the pork butt at the top of the aluminum foil leaving around 8-12″ of foil above the pork butt.

That looks like this:

3. Roll the layered sides over the top of the pork butt

Tuck the foil under the pork butt, creating a tight seal.

4. Fold the sides of the foil inwards, over the pork butt

Then crease the edges of the foil all the way to the bottom of the sheets.

5. Roll the rest of the aluminum foil over the top of itself.

If there’s a “tail” of excessive amount of aluminum foil, fold this on top of itself, creating a pillow to roll the pork butt onto.

Ensure all my sides are even and check for any signs of leaks.

If you detect a leak – don’t fret – simply restart the above process.

You’re not in a huge rush here. If you have to unwrap and wrap again, it’s not a huge deal.

7. Put the wrapped pork butt back on your smoker or in your oven.

Dylan’s Aluminum Pan Method

What you’ll need to wrap with an Aluminum pan (Dylan’s way):

• Aluminum Pans
• Butcher Paper
• Aluminum Foil
• Oven Safe Cooling Racks
• Liquid (Water, Apple Juice, etc.)

1. To start, fill an aluminum pan with enough liquid to cover the bottom of the pan.

Then put your oven safe cooling rack in the center.

To comment on the oven safe cooling rack:

The reason I like to use an oven safe cooling rack is because I personally find that the bark tends to turn soggier when it sits in its own juices and honestly the meat just tastes worse.

2. Place the pork but on top of the cooling rack:

3. Loosely cover the pork butt with butcher paper.

The reason for the butcher paper is because aluminum foil tends to “eat” the bark when wrapped with aluminum foil directly – that’s my experience.

Just to prove this, here’s the butcher paper above after wrapping the pork butt above for 2 hours:

4. Lastly, cover the aluminum pan with aluminum foil and ensure there are no leaks.

You then can place this aluminum pan back in your smoker or oven.