Why does nobody talk about how much fat renders out of pork shoulder?

I smoked a 10 pound butt last Saturday for 8 hours and lost almost 3 pounds just to fat dripping off. Nobody warned me when I started this trade that you gotta account for that much shrink in your pricing. Any of you guys weigh your trim before and after to get real numbers?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_gavin22d ago

Respectfully, I see it different. That 30% loss from fat and moisture is just part of the deal when you're cooking pork shoulder. You gotta build that into your cost per pound from the start, not treat it like a surprise. Weighing trim before and after is fine for your own records, but the real number that matters is what you can sell the finished product for. Price it right and that "loss" is just the cost of doing business, not a problem.

finley77721d ago

I read a breakdown from a guy at Oregon State's meat science program who said the same thing about pork shoulders cooked low and slow. He crunched the numbers and found that 25-35% loss is normal for most home cooks, even with careful trimming. The real trick he mentioned isn't about cutting loss, it's about pricing your final product to cover that shrink. Your mileage may vary on the exact percentage, but his point was that if you're selling pulled pork, you're selling cooked weight, not raw weight. So you have to charge enough per pound of finished meat to make up for the fat and moisture that rendered out. That's just how the math works in my experience.