Hey, Y'all!
Here I sit, basically 15 hours into cooking two butts, one 7 1/2 pounder and one 8 1/4. Put the larger of the two on the lower rack (actually, with the rack hanging from the lower holes, which moves the lowest grill up a couple of inches). The larger, lower butt is at 195 and the smaller upper is at 190. I was surprised to see them set that four to five degree difference about an hour into the cook and maintain it throughout. I figure that I'll let the big one hit 198 to 200 and bring them both out, wrapping the smaller in foil and pull the larger while the little one cooks a little longer. All of which is pretty standard.
My question is whether that temp difference is usual for a Smokette and if the 190 to 195 plateau (four hours today) can be reduced by cooking only one butt at a time? Will it affect the quality of the product to bump the temp from the 225 where it has been to 250 in order to 'speed' up the plateau period?
Lastly, in the larger units (50, 150 especially), does the temp difference remain constant and continue to widen as you get further away from the element? (probably) If that's the case, it would seem to me that there could be a potential difference in 'done times' of hours if you were cooking at three or more grill positions. Is this so?
(obviously, I have too much time on my hands if I'm taking the time to post questions like this while I'm cooking!)
Original Post
.....The 195 degree plateau seems like a long time and the boost to 250 degrees shouldn't hurt anything......I'd be tempted to wiggle the bone in each of them and check the internal a couple of places with an insta-read thermometer......Cooking multiple butts doesn't seem to affect my Smokette...Hope this helps some.
