New FEC 100 Load of Butts

Not sure how big the butts are. You won't fit 4 10# butts per shelf with an air gap to allow circulation. The bottom left shelf is hottest. The right entire side is cooler. I'd figure 3 butts/4 shelves & rotate 180* & top to bottom @ the stall (170ish). Remember, the 100 in FEC 100 means 100 pounds of pork butts. 12 butts is overloading it. Personally I'd cook hotter (250) straight through foiling @ the stall. If you want some coal black bark to mix in, only foil 6 butts. Then you'll know.
GOOD LUCK!

Most of the butts I get are in the 7 to 8 pound range.

I think your plan will work. I'd probably recommend rotating and moving racks at least once in the cook. Also would probably do the 3 per rack thing just to help with air flow.

They probably won't all be done at the same time, but you have more than enough buffer to get em done.

Foil or no foil... good question, will cook faster if you foil at the stall, but not necessary.

Shoot us some pics of the cook and final product!

Nordy

I've cooked 16 butts 4/shelf with no problems.
With 12 you can go 3 per shelf. Fast Eddy recommends loading the Fec like an upside down Christmas tree to allow for better air movement.
Less on the bottom shelf, more on the top.
Load it from bottom to top. 2, 3, 3, 4.

I know with our traditional electric CS we often start with the coldest meat and cooker that we can.

Being first full load on a new FE 100,I might keep it simple cooking for diners that will be amazed by your product,anyway.

I'd go ahead and preheat the cooker with that cold mass.I'd let the butts set out ,rubbed,while the cooker is warming.

I'd run it between 240º-250º the whole cook.Put your therm probe in the smallest butt,as it should start coming ready first.

You can pay attention to the grease pan,but I'd guess it will be ok.

Hard to mess up butts,so enjoy.

Lots of solid advice from the fine cooks above.

When rotating racks, the top and bottom will be the hottest. When it comes to a rack, the back left will be the hottest and the front right the coldest.

I'd give it 2 hrs at 200*, before jumping the temps to 240-250*. The bottom rack will appreciate it and it will also appreciate you leaving the fat cap on the butts and down.

You'll find that the smoker will cook just fine with a full load, in fact prolly a little better/efficient.

Have fun.....

Hard to even comment among the experience on this board, but I usually do a longer 180-190 smoke for 5-6 hours then bump up to 230ish for until desired internal temp. Puts a little more smokiness on the butts. I've done this with a full load, but they are right about the thermal mass. You have to let the butts set out for a while and warm up a bit, or your fire pot will be constantly blowing trying to get up to temp. Same with 40 racks of ribs in ribracks.

I have done 12 butts many times without any problems. I have not felt like I needed to rotate the meats. With any meats, some will get done ahead of others. I load larger pieces tot he bottom, and then smaller toward top. Don't think the grease pan will be an issue.

I normally run mine at 225 the full cook. After the cooker comes up to temp it will put out much more smoke. But that should only take about 45-60 minutes.

RandyE

While I don't do it that often, I have smoked 16 butts in my FEC 100. In fact, I have had both of my FEC 100s loaded pretty full.

The only time that I have rotated racks is if I have 16 butts in there. Plus, I will run the smoker at 180 for the first four hours and then bump it up to 235. The FEC 100 seems to smoke more efficiently when I have larger loads in them. But this is all just my experience with them.

The deed is done! Thanks for all of the help. Plans changed at the last minute, and I only ended up smoking 10 butts. We rubbed all the butts with Cookshack Ribrub, and let them set out while the FEC 100 was warming up. I set the IQ5 controller for 8.5 hrs at 180 degrees (half hr was to warm it up) then up to 240 to finish.



I put the 2 biggest butts on the bottom shelf, the next biggest 2 on top, and the rest on the middle two shelves 3 per shelf.



Everything was going at about 9pm. It took a little longer than I expected. I started taking the first ones out at about 1pm. The top and bottom shelves were the first ones done. After I took them out, I kicked the temp up to 260. The last ones finished about 4pm. I took them to an internal temp of 195 then wrapped them in foil and put in a cooler to hold. We pulled and served at 6pm. I was very pleased with the results for my first big cook. Lots of compliments on the bbq.

Again, thanks for the help.

Nice job.

Nice job! How many people and how much left overs?

We fed about 125 people and had 2 butts left.

Amazing job and great photos. This is the first of many successes with the FEC.