PBs for group

Put the probe in the smallest one, so you'll know when it's ready.

I would rotate them in the morning.

Start sooner if you need to, if they're done early, double wrap in foil and they'll hold for HOURs in a small ice chest (no ice)

You might add one or two more oz of wood but you don't have too.

They shouldn't matter, 1 or 4 but the cooker seems to like it better when there is more.

quote:

Originally posted by SmokinOkie:

They shouldn't matter, 1 or 4 but the cooker seems to like it better when there is more.

Smokin--

Are you suggesting that 4 heatsinks (a cold piece of meat forcing the element to stay on longer) will produce better smoke than 1 heatsink? If not, why does the smoker like it better?

Thanks Smokin.

Pags,

It just does, I can't give you a specific reason?

As we've guess frequently, the heat sink effect seems to just work better when the smoker is full, but I'm not monitoring the heating element or anything to figure it out.

It's just practical experience. It's not better or worse, it just is.

So do you all think I should start earlier? Best I could probably do (hate it when work interferes with eating) is start at 4:30.

I'm also making pulled pork for a large group, I have an Amerique and I want to cram 10 boneless shoulders into it (Costco), for a total of 75 lbs.

My plan is to smoke at 225 degrees for about 20 hours, then let them sit for a couple hours before I have my crew start to pull them. I don't really want to open the smoker and rotate them, so I was thinking about putting a layer of foil over the bottom rack to deflect some of the direct heat off the bottom butts.

Do you guys (Ya'll) think my timing will work? I need a little confidence booster. ;-]

Hi Carroll Family,

I just found my old notes for the last time I did 4 boneless shoulder/butts in my Amerique, hope it helps:

4 butts 7.5 lbs each
4 oz hickory, 4 oz apple, random bbq rub

230 degrees for the first 17 hours = 185 internal temp.
250 degrees for last 2 hours = 196 internal

Let us know what you decide and how it turns out.

If your PB's take 20 hrs, it'll get done by 2:00 pm if you start at 6:00 pm the day before. If they're done sooner, you'll be FTCing for well over 4 hrs. Personally, I wouldn't start them any earlier and may even start them a little later than 6:00 pm.

None of my pork butts have taken longer than 18 hrs in my Elite for the larger cuts and quite often less time. If you start at 8:00 pm the night before, 20 hrs takes you to 4:00 pm. My thought is you need the flexibility towards the later start time.

My 2 cents.

I wouldn't expect them to take any longer than usual. I also would not rotate. Place any fat on the bottom of the lower pair and let er' rip. It might get a little crunchy but not much, and it will blend in well with that much meat.

Thanks. Will let you all know how it turns out. I just finished putting the rub on the butts and wrapping them up to spend the night in the fridge.

Are you cooking for 20 hrs as a timing plan?

When ya'll say cooking at 225º,is that cooker dial setting,or the actual cooking temp at the rack?

Is there a reason you wouldn't want to open the cooker,when cooking a bunch of butts?

When cooking even four butts,if you use a little larger cooler and insulate with newspaper,the butts will still be too hot to handle after eight hrs.

Ten butts will stay hot,even longer.

If we cook a couple cases,we start checking and removing about six AM.

Taking the done ones to foil and store,while shifting others to hot spots.

We may not serve until late afternoon,and they are still hot.

Make the cooker and hot box work for you.

Shoulders/butts are very forgiving.

Just a couple of thoughts.

OK, something strange happened in the middle of the night.......

I put the 10 butts in at 6:00 last night, set the smoker temp to 225. Checked it a couple times before bed, seemed to be doing it's thing correctly.

When a checked it this morning at 6:30 am, the meat probe registered 159, the other two backup probes read 156 and 158. HOWEVER, the smoker had switched to the "keep warm mode", because I programmed it to turn off when the meat probe reached 200 degrees. The countdown timer on the Amerique showed that it had switched to the "keep warm mode" 4 hours earlier (at 3:00 am), which means that it only smoked for 9 hours at 225 and then decided it was done.

I think my probe sent a faulty signal. My reasons for thinking this are:

1. All three thermometers showed the meat temp as 158-ish. I think that they would still be closer to 200 if they really had reached that temp and then went to keep warm mode for only 4 hours, plus it was a warm night here in CA.

2. 9 hours at 225 degrees wouldn't bring the butts up to 200 internal temp, especially with the plateau effect.

So, I opened the smoker, shoved the probe into another one of the butts, and restarted the smoker at 235 degrees and the probe set to 200 again....but I'll watch it.

Thoughts? I just ordered a new meat probe from Cookshack.....for the "very reasonable" price of $142.00! Ouch!

PS, luckily, I put another bigger pan under the drip tray in case of overflow, which it did by an extra inch of liquid grossness.

Good post Tom. Since multiple butts stay hot that long, then the CarollFamily plan to start at 6:00 pm will work just fine.

quote:

Originally posted by Smoke In The Cockpit:
OK, something strange happened in the middle of the night.......

I put the 10 butts in at 6:00 last night, set the smoker temp to 225. Checked it a couple times before bed, seemed to be doing it's thing correctly.

When a checked it this morning at 6:30 am, the meat probe registered 159, the other two backup probes read 156 and 158. HOWEVER, the smoker had switched to the "keep warm mode", because I programmed it to turn off when the meat probe reached 200 degrees. The countdown timer on the Amerique showed that it had switched to the "keep warm mode" 4 hours earlier (at 3:00 am), which means that it only smoked for 9 hours at 225 and then decided it was done.

Actually this sounds right to me. I usually start at 10:00pm with a full load of butts @225-250*, and they're usually ready by 6:30-7:00ish. Since you were doing boneless, and they tend to flatten out some, your times sound good.

The holding temp you mentioned is about what I'd expect too. I don't see any problems.

i cant wait to hear what was the final verdict from smoke in the cockpit. i buy the costco butts all the time. i have a load in as we speak. they are usually between 7 and 8 pounds each and i smoke them at 250 until internal temp is between 200 and 205. it takes between 10 - 12 hours. i dont know how much difference it makes that i do 250 instead of 225. i guess 9 hours seems a little wuick but 20 seems really long to me. let us know how it all worked out.

Well now,Woody.

You are a mite closer to God than we are at the ocean's edge,and that does have an effect.

Lot to be said for ACTUAL temp at cook level.

Yep,235*-250* ACTUAL cook temp can make a huge difference in time,and not too much in quality.

Tom,
I put the dial on 225 and just let it go until the meat hits about 205. I have pulled a PB out at 203 when I am getting worried about time.
And yes, the PBs (the most I have done before is two) take at least 18 hours and sometimes 20 hours to hit the temp.
I should mention I pull the PBs out of a very cold refrig and put them in a cold smoker. I know some people let the butts come up to room temp but I never have.
As a final thought, I should mention that I usually never crack the door open. I usually just let them sit and cook until the temp is right.
I'm getting ready to put them in the smoker now (6:00pm EST) and will let you know how they work out.
Thanks for the tip about adding insulation to the cooler when I FTC them. Will try that. I don't plan on shredding them until right before our guests arrive. My thought is that is the best way to keep the meat warm and juicy.
Darn I'm getting hungry !!
Thanks all
Jim

OK, I blinked.

At the 21 hour mark now (minus the 4 hours in the middle of the night, butts are reading about 185 right now average. Cranked the Amerique up to 250.

I pulled the bottom 2 butts out and autopsied them, nice bark, the meat falls apart but is just slightly pink still. Not pink as in raw, but not "the other white meat" kinda look.

I'm going to leave the other 8 butts on until they reach 200. I'll mix it all together and should be OK.

Question:

Those of you cooking to 200*+, have you ever tried pulling it and FTC at 190-195*? Generally speaking, at 190*+, the meat will fall apart in your hand. How much more tender do you want it?

I find that 200*+ usually leads to mushy meat. Some pieces do need a little extra time, but I find that it's a rare occurrence.

In a CS a butt cooked to 190* will yield about 55%, maybe 58%. Cooked to 200+, I'm guessing your yield will be down to 48-50% and a lot of that difference will be moisture better left in the meat.

Another question to Smoke In The Cockpit:

Your quote: "I pulled the bottom 2 butts out and autopsied them, nice bark, the meat falls apart but is just slightly pink still. Not pink as in raw, but not "the other white meat" kinda look".

This statement confuses me. The Costco "shoulders" are actually butts (which are part of the shoulder) but they may have some of the lower leg meat on them. The picnic (lower leg) has the pig equivalent of dark meat on it. It is some of the tastiest meat on the hog IMO. I like to cook picnics and mix in their meat with the butt meat. It adds a lot of flavor. But my point is, you'll never cook the pink out of this meat. At 185*, you're way past the point of being fully cooked, you're just cooking it more for additional tenderness. If you want white meat, cook loins.

Also, in your earlier post, what was the condition of the meat after 9 hours. You mentioned temp, but did you check it to see if the meat was done? You could have had a bad probe insertion point causing an early shut off, or you could have fully cooked butts.

Plenty of people here cook butts in under 10-12 hours. Full cookers cook faster than lightly loaded cookers. You might just be cooking your butts twice. Trust your instruments unless you have a good reason not to or you'll fly out of the clouds upside down.

Getting a bit worried... Just checked on the butts. I have the probe in the smallest one and it is reading 178 !! They have only been in 6 hours. These are cooking much faster than one or two butts. I turned the temp down to about 215..might be FTCing these things for 6-8 hours at this rate.

15 hours in...188.
It is really interesting how the meat seem to get to 180 much faster than usual and now is moving at the slow normal pace..

The inevitable "Plateau". Funny how that happens.

And a good thing too. Or a lot of us would have had brisket or pork butt for breakfast.

Just my 2 cents but i always plan on 225 for 14hours and plan to have it ready 4 hours early. That way if they take a little longer they are ok and if they are done on time thats good to. I can tell you with out a doubt i have several size coolers from a 12pack to a very large holds a 100lbs of butts. If you stack them in a cooler and close the lid if WILL stay to hot to handle for 5-8 hours.

closer to god? tom, i hope you are referring to our altitude and not my advanced age. i started collecting social security last month and i am feeling a little sensitive. i am at almost 60oo ft. above see level though.

The plateau has been a long one. They butts have been in for about 20 hours now. The smallest one (5.5 lbs) was hovering around 200 so I finally cranked it up to 250 about 30 minutes to get'er done. She is at now about 202 and I will pull that one pretty soon.
The smell coming from the smoker is outstanding...pretty funny to see my dogs walking around with their noses held high in the air tryingt to get a whiff !!

Nobody answered my question!

Why are you cooking to 200* plus?

Cooks Illustrated did a piece a couple of years back about cooking a chicken for 24 hours in a dutch oven. They cooked it at about 180* looking for a breast temp of 170* IIRC. It takes almost forever to reach a meat temp that almost equals the cooking temp. This is no doubt part of the reason why some of your cooks take so long.

With an oven temp of 225*, I'd bet that that you're adding 4+ hours to a cook to go from 195* to 205*. Your cooker will barely cycle at all with a 195* piece of meat sitting in it. What do you think is happening to the meat during this extra time? The fat rendered during the plateau.

I'm not saying you're doing anything wrong, I'm just asking why you think you need to cook a pork butt to over 200*? I'd be willing to bet money you've never been to a restaurant where they cook their butts to 200*. Most I'd wager cook to ~180-185* as this produces an optimal chopped product, and a workable pulled product without the reduction in moisture and yield that would result from cooking to 200*.

As Tom might say, sometimes you could be getting meat from a 12 year old sow that needs to be cooked to 205*, and even then won't be tender. I would say if you're getting meat of this quality you need to seek out a new supplier because this is not the norm.

Also, to those of you that change temps during a cook, WHY? It's one thing if you just want to adjust cooking time to fit a schedule, but it seems a lot of folks start at one temp and bump it up to another temp a few hours into the cook with little to no thought behind this action. If there is a reason other than timing, I'd love to be educated.

I post this in the spirit of wanting people to have a reason for taking certain action and an understanding of their process, as opposed to just pushing buttons and turning knobs just because they're bored.

Hey. Good stuff Todd. I kick it up sometimes to move it along once the meats past the point of picking up smoke. With the leg of lamb, I did it cause I'm used to mom's well cooked lamb and just wanted the outside more "finished". Usually, I just leave it alone, but if you're saying I'm wasting time, I can be educated.

quote:

Originally posted by Pags:
Hey. Good stuff Todd. I kick it up sometimes to move it along once the meats past the point of picking up smoke. With the leg of lamb, I did it cause I'm used to mom's well cooked lamb and just wanted the outside more "finished". Usually, I just leave it alone, but if you're saying I'm wasting time, I can be educated.

Hi Pags. Not saying you're wasting time at all. Disregarding the posts where it's made clear that someone bumped up the temp to speed cooking (I do this myself), I see posts where the people say they started at 200* then four hours in they went to 225* or some other temp. They say it as if they have some reason for following this procedure, and will sometimes say things like "I always turn up the temp after XX hours". My question is "Why"? What do they think they're accomplishing? Is this step necessary? Are you suffering from CS guilt, and feel that you must overly complicate things so as to hide from your significant other how easy this really is, and thereby solidify your position in the home for one more night?

It's not a big deal, it's just that this thread has kind of made some things click inside my head as I've realized that some/maybe all the threads that talk about long cook times may be caused by assumptions made by myself and others as to when a piece of meat is done, and why some folks seem to have magic numbers, like always cooking at 225* vs 250*, or finishing at 195* instead of 205*.

I know why I usually cook butts to about 190* before I pull them. I know what they are like at 180*. I know what they are like at 205* I have a reason for doing what I do the way I do it. I also know that I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a butt cooked at 225* vs 250*. 225* vs 325*, almost certain I could.

All the threads where the people say they have checked the accuracy of their therms but are still getting 20 hour cooks have always made me go "hummmmmm?. I KNOW that a properly functioning 225* oven in NC should cook as fast/no faster than a 225* oven in (insert location of choice) within a very narrow range. Exceptions to this I usually attributed to unusually large cuts of meat or LIARS! because I think there are people out there that open their doors and don't admit it (I've been keeping a list of suspects but that's a topic for another day). But the time difference could be explained to a large degree by a finished temp of 190* vs. 205* (and the rest could be explained by those lying door openers, but I digress(I am working on my issues ).

I think there's also an element of "time envy" involved. Lower and slower is portrayed as being better, because it's lower and slower of course. It seems like a lot of sites and shows on TV are featuring people that either don't know what they're doing or are just plain BS'ing everybody. I saw a Diner Drive-ins, and Dives recently where the owner of a restaurant claimed he smoked his St.Louis ribs for 20 hours. Yeah, right! They may have been in the smoker for that long, but the thing wasn't turned on. On the other side is Arthur Bryant's that cooks their briskets for ~12 hours(likely at ~300* though), and one of the famous brisket houses in Texas that said they cooked their shoulder clods for 4.5 hours, also at a likely 300-350* I'm guessing. I believe both the people making these statements, and knowing their cook time I can make an educated guess at their pit temp and weight of cut. (But I bet the Texas clod looks more like a steamship round from your last hotel buffet than a brisket, at least at the 4.5 hour mark)

But people hear these things and pretty soon it's an escalation of truth's and half truths, and outright lies. "You only cook your ribs for 20 hours?, well heck, there's your problem right there. I cook mine for 3 days!"

Understanding why there has been such a wide range of reported cook times won't bring about world peace or universal health care, but it sure would make me happy, because in my world, physics doesn't change very much from one location to another.

And your mom's leg of lamb is sounding pretty good to me right now. I've got a rosemary-garlic rub that would work real nice. I wonder if there's a store open around here this late.......

Got you. How's this for physics? Most my pork butts take about 1.5 hrs/lb. They're usually around 8 lbs and take 11-12 hrs. The last one, 8 lbs, took 18.5 hrs.

So what gives. Bad physics or one of those stubborn pigs Tom talks about?

OK. I just left my Barbecue Anonymous class for addicted Qers so here's the rest of the story. I was worried about the butt getting done too early so I set the smoker at 200* overnight and went to bed a little earlier than usual. When I woke up in the morning, I kicked the smoker to 225*. Six hrs. later, things were progressing very slowly, so I kicked it up to 250*

Stubborn pig or did my "slow start" create the longer smoke time? I plan my smokes to get done earlier than expected so I can FTC to gain the benefits of both the tenderness and flexibility foiling provides. But a six hour swing really can screw up a dinner if one is allowing a few hours for the FTC. Was I my worst enemy in my latest pork butt endeavor? Or is this time variance the reality of smoking?

I'll try and answer your last question first: "is this time variance the reality of smoking?"

It shouldn't be. Nobody cooking to a schedule, i.e. restaurants or caterers, could do smoked food if this was the norm, but most restaurants/caterers wouldn't start at one temp and then go to a higher temp during a cook either. In my experience on the rare occasions where I've started at 200* with the hopes of sleeping through the night, I've usually regretted the decision as the final stage of cooking took longer than I wanted.

As for an 18.5 hour pork butt, I don't know. It may be that there IS that much difference in meat from region to region. The pork I buy from BJ's is amazing in it's consistency. Twin paks of butts contain almost identical butts, every time. The twin paks from Sam's can have one 8# and one 4.5#. Really strange, so no more Sam's for me except for brisket. I got a load of meat a few years back from another supplier that looked like goat meat, except it was too fat to be a goat, but the flesh was red and stringy before cooking. That stuff took forever to cook, and needed 200+ to be chewable. I don't buy butts from them anymore, but their whole hogs are beautiful. Go figure.

But you're in CA. Physics doesn't apply out there. You've got Nancy P. and Arnold living within shouting distance of each other. If physics worked right, there would have to be some kind of explosion.

OK. I'll take ownership of the longer cook time. Since this was out of my "norm", my tinkering probably created the big variance from my typical smoked butt times. Six hours is sure a big swing.

Just want you to know Nancy Pelosi is not in my voting district. She was elected by San Franciscans.

To tag onto an always thoughtful post from Todd,and several good thoughts from the other good cooks.

This comes as "personal experiences".

I can lay out five therms ,to take to a cookoff.

Check the boiling/freezing point on all.

Write the temp inaccuracies on masking tape on each.

At the cookoff,at least one,has gone way off.

Next,if you don't actually check the temp at the cook rack,you COULD BE be 20º-30º off.

Third,from my years of cooking on a Smokette/008 at ACTUAL +/- 225º, a typical market hog of about 250 lbs,2 pack of butts,weighing 15-16 lbs, 1.5 hrs/lb was pretty dependable.

On very long cooks,at this low temp,I often found another plateau about 192º.*****

I found ,I could open the cooker,remove the bone,and couldn't remove the butt-because it was falling apart in my hands.

Fourth,I had to use two neoprene gloves ,or a pizza peel to remove each butt.

Like Todd says,it was probably done by 190º,especially after resting in the hotbox,another four hrs.

I don't worry why,I'm just an ol' country cook,I just write down my experiences.

Like Todd says,good cooks have to learn to recreate ,dependably,their successes.


I also learned that my Smokette liked to cook at +/- 235º.

Just a couple of thoughts,but think about them.