By Dylan Clay
The main reason people use mustard on pork butt is so that the dry rub sticks better to the meat.
Mustard itself is popular because it’s vinegar based, it’s cheap, and it’s found in most people’s refrigerators.
After smoking tons of pork butts I find binders – whether it be mustard or an alternative below – to be useful.
This is because pork butt is rather irregular in shape.
Something like brisket or ribs lay flat and you have less of a concern for dry rub to fall off.
Since the meat is being pulled apart, having uniform bark is less of a concern too.
Where-as with brisket you’re often creating pencil thin slices with strips of bark across the top.
With brisket, I’ve had several instances where I’ll completely lose bark when I’ve used mustard; Almost like an old paint falling off a car.
Almost all yellow mustard is made from a combination of the same ingredients:
For example, one of the most popular brands of Yellow mustard is French’s.
Their ingredients list:
When the liquid ingredients are “cooked” they vaporize. Meaning, we’re left behind with soluble ingredients like mustard seed, salt, turmeric, paprika, etc.
Almost all of these ingredients are found in barbecue dry rubs. Meaning, when you apply a dry rub, the mustard is indistinguishable from the rub.
For most cuts of meat I don’t use a binder.
If I ever think the rub won’t stick – I use water.
This boneless pork butt used a honey mustard rub with large granules – a little water helped it cling to the surface, no problem.
If you don’t have clean drinking water use:
I’ve tested tons of binders and I’ve never been able to taste them.
Most end up cooking off during the cook.
My name is Albert and I’m a first time smoker just trying to learn the ways of smoking and today I’m trying to smoke a pork butt
Well Albert, you’ve picked one of the best cuts to start learning with!
If you have other pork butt questions, be sure to check out my section called “Pork Butt 101” – It goes over everything you might want to know about smoking a pork butt.
-Dylan