Harry Soo of Slap Yo’ Daddy BBQ, based in Diamond Bar, California, has built one of the more recognisable competition records in American barbecue: California Team of the Year two years running, numerous Grand and Reserve Grand Championships, and more than 75 first-place finishes across individual meat categories, cooking exclusively on the Weber Smokey Mountain. His pork butt method centres on a specific, documented practice that separates competition barbecue from most backyard cooking: injecting the meat before it ever goes on the smoker.
Why Competition Teams Inject Pork Butt at All
A rub and a long smoke season the outside of a pork butt effectively, but they do very little for the interior of a large, dense cut. Injecting a flavoured liquid directly into the meat distributes flavour and moisture through the middle of the butt as well as the surface, which matters enormously in a competition context, where a judge tastes a single bite that has to deliver flavour all the way through, not just around the bark. Soo’s approach is to build flavour in distinct layers across the whole process — injecting, rubbing, spritzing during the cook, foiling with more liquid, and finishing with sauce and seasoning at the end — rather than relying on any single step to carry the whole result.
The Actual Injection Recipe
Per pork butt, Soo’s documented Slap Yo’ Daddy injection combines: 2 cups apple juice, ¼ cup vinegar (white or apple cider), 1¼ cups white sugar, 3 tablespoons table salt, 1 tablespoon Louisiana-style hot sauce, and 1 teaspoon liquid smoke. The mix leans sweet and salty rather than heavily spiced, which is a deliberate choice — the injection is there to season and moisten the interior, not to compete with the bark’s flavour on the outside.
The Injection Technique
The method itself is systematic rather than a few random jabs with the injector. With the butt positioned fat-side down, injections are made in roughly one-inch increments across the meat in a grid pattern, working methodically left to right and top to bottom, so the whole interior gets even coverage rather than pockets of liquid in some areas and none in others. The needle is inserted at an angle, driven deep into the meat, and the plunger is depressed slowly while withdrawing the needle, which distributes the liquid along the needle’s path through the meat rather than pooling it all in one spot.
Bone-In, and Why
Soo specifically recommends bone-in pork butt over boneless, noting that the larger blade bone contributes meaningfully to the final flavour during the long cook. This is a small but deliberate choice within the broader method — the bone is not simply left in because it is the default cut, it is chosen for what it adds over the course of a long, slow smoke.
Temperature and Resting
The documented method runs the smoker at 225–250°F. The pork butt is smoked to an internal temperature of 170°F before being wrapped in foil with additional flavouring, and the cook continues to a final internal temperature of 195°F. Before pulling, the meat is rested for roughly 30 minutes, or until it has dropped back to around 170°F, which allows the internal juices — both the original moisture and the injected liquid — to redistribute through the meat rather than running out the moment it is pulled apart.
Applying This at Home
For a home cook without a full competition-style injector setup, the core lesson translates directly: a basic meat injector, available cheaply, and a simple apple-juice-and-vinegar-based liquid can meaningfully improve moisture and flavour distribution through the middle of a large cut, in a way that rub and smoke alone genuinely cannot reach. The grid pattern matters more than the specific liquid recipe — uneven, random injection points leave uneven results, while a systematic pass across the whole cut gets liquid distributed through the meat that a rub sitting on the surface never will.
Sources
- The Virtual Weber Bullet. “Pork Butt: Harry Soo Slap Yo’ Daddy Injection.” virtualweberbullet.com