Big - Butt Cook!

Almost forgot... Is there any extra safety precautions that I should be taking given the amount of fat that's going to come off of these guys (other than bathing in it of course!)?

I get giddy like a school girl just thinking about all that butt in my pit!

I cook 16 butts on my FEC 100 every so often and there is not big problem with it. In fact, I think the FEC actually runs better with a full load than with a partial load but that is another conversation.

It may be just me, but I preheat mine to 224. Then load the butts on. Put bigger butts to the back on the left and on lower grates. Once I load the butts in, I adjust the cooking temp down to 180* and leave it there for 4 hours. I usually start at 150* but with such a large load, the smoker has a difficult time keeping up with that temp.

After four hours, I turn the temp up to 235-240 and leave it there for the rest of the cook. About halfway through the cook, 6 hours, I switch the bottom grate with the top grate.

Other than that, you should be fine. BTW, the butts will come off over a 2-3 hour timeframe. some will finish faster than others. And when that happens, I move some of the butts around to to the hotter spots in the smoker.

If you want to put remote therms to monitor butt temps, I would put them in the butts on far back left on the bottom top grates, they seem to finish first.

On safety precautions, just clean and refoil the smoker before firing it up. And have an empty grease pan in the bottom. BTW, after about ten hours, I stir the pellets in the fire pot to knock the ashes down as someone else had suggested here recently.

Let us know how it works for you.

Hey, Ribdog Knew it before I found it out this week. I've cooked a load of 16 butts 3 times this week in preperation for this weekend. It was learning experience to say the least. The FE100 did GREAT! It educated me on times, temps and "Hot Spots". The lower left is hotter than I would have thought, but not top extremes. I put them on at 6:00pm at 235* and wrapped them at 5:00am before going to work. The hold kicked in at 9:00am snd they were waiting on me at 5:00pm that afternoon. Pretty smooth operation compaired to the way it used to be with a STICK BURNER.

John, noticed that you mentioned 6hours being the halfway point and no mention of foiling. This is right in line with how I've always cooked butts, but just wanted to double check.. No need to foil, and typically looking at 12hrs +2-4 extra hours due to the load?

I've never been a thermometer guy when it comes to pork butt, so I'll probably stick with the "feels done" approach.

Thanks for the info guys!

BTW... You're all killing me with the "hold kicking in" etc. My ole lady's going to kill me when I finally decide the order the IQ4 controller. Man that sure sounds nice!

Cooking with John,we foil them to go to the cooler ,to hold for the event.

He'll usually probe a small butt,to give a feel where things are ,when checking the cooker in the morning.



After that we can feel with one hand,instaprobe others ,that are in doubt.

Tom-Fl

2Ks,

Having a full load does not specifically add any additional time in my opinion. I start at 6 pm the night before and usually the first butts off at 6 am the next morning. I just did a load of 16 a few weeks ago and all the butts were off by 9 am. I think that was due more to differences in size than anything else.

And I don't foil mine while in the smoker unless I am trying to hurry the cooking process. Otherwise, as Tom pointed out, I wait to wrap when they come out finished.

I don't use the hold feature. Never really found a use for it other than to use it in reverse. If I want the smoker to move the temp up after a certain number of hours, as in this case, I can program it to go up to 235 after 6 hours. Easy peasy.

Enjoy. And again, come back and tell us how it worked for you.

Much appreciated to all! I will definitely let you know how it goes.

I try to arrange it so the BIG ones are in the back or on the hotter shelves, trying to get things done pretty much at the same time.

Well the butts are off, pulled and ready to go. The FEC had no issues with 16 butts. Unfortunately, not entirely up to my standards, but was definitely a learning experience.

Had a really high cook loss of almost 62%. I actually only calculated for 50%. So I guess the cook doesn't get any leftovers after all.

Lessons learned;

I definitely learned to stay away from the no-name temp in between 225 and 275 for this particular cook. Should have left well enough alone at 225 before hitting the sac for the last six hours of cooking. When I got up this morning, most of the butts were very black, telling me that they just got too hot.

Can't blame the cooker, I changed my approach for the first time in a lot of years.

-Omitted the mop. Normally I mop anywhere from 2-6 times during a 12hour butt cook. Given the number of butts, and the heat loss due to opening the cooker several times, sliding out shelves and mopping, just figured that it would be better to omit the mop in order to keep my cook time down.

-Packed the topsides with brown sugar, which also explains more burning than normal. Normally I don't use brown sugar I just use raw sugar in my rub (higher melting/burn point). Was looking for an easy way to get that sweet and spicy coating that I typically get on butts without mopping.

Oh well, hopefully everyone still enjoys it. If I've realized anything, it's that my standards are typically much higher than that of the common eater.

Thanks again for all the assistance!

It will probably be better than anything else they have ever had. Even though it may not be up to your standards. I am the same way with ribs. One of my neighbors wants me to cook some ribs for a small graduation party and said why don't I cook them up ahead of time and then just keep them in the fridge until needed. I told the neighbor that I would prefer to cook them fresh as that is how they taste the best. I think they understood.

One summer,I was cooking a lot of butts on cookshacks,so I weighed raw,and very clean pulled, yield weight.

I mostly did Sam's,non injected,at 225º.

Over the summer we had a 46 % yield,or 54 % loss.

Since cookshacks cook very moist,I never mop.

Did not have much in the drip pans,at this low temp.

Stuck with raw sugar,so had good color.

I would have thought,maybe,at low temps,my yield would be a little higher,but that was the summer's results.

That's good information to know. Then I wasn't too far off. Unfortunately at 125lbs, the 12% difference cost me about 15lbs that I wasn't anticipated. Luckily I still had the event covered, but not by much at all. Guess that I need to start planning for 55-60% loss from here forward, just to be safe.