What happened?

Hi dchem,

I've never had a Butt done in under 18hrs. Most of mine have been about 6-7lbs tho. unfortunately they will take quite a bit of time. There is a "plateau" that you must get over and it will/can last for hours and hours. When I cook a butt, like I said I plan on putting it in the night before and getting it done sometime in the afternoon. Here's and example. I'll cover with butt rub and let sit overnight in the fridge. Take it out and let rest for 30 minutes or so while I get the smoker ready. I start mine around 9 or 10 P.M. @ 225, never lower or higher, they have been consistently done around 2 or 3 P.M. the following day, using my polder to get close to 200... cooking over night is nice cause it stops you from opening the door and increasing your cooking time, unless you are Sleep Q'ing.. Anyway, after that I'll double foil and place in the cooler until I'm ready to serve, these things stay piping hot for hours in foil and a cooler.. haven't made a bad one yet, and they all (close to 10 since December) have been outstanding!

It will take some time, but you'll get the hang of it. Keep a log, with times, temp, weights, ect... and as Smokin say's, "It's Done when it's done!"

Thanks for the input. I read repeatedly in the butts section where people cooked 7 pounders in approximately 14 hours. I expected my half-weight to get done in half the time. Guess it's my mistake.

As for the plateau, I charted temp vs. time and it was darn near linear, about 3.3 degrees per hour.

I didn't open the door at all the entire cook time or else, I would have "blamed" the long cook time on that.

Like I said, thanks for the input. How long should I expect a 9 pound brisket to take. I know it's done when... etc., but would a brisket take closer to 18 hours or 30? I want to avoid another feast peaking at 8:00 in the morning..... dchem

Howdy,dchem.

I cooked a lot of years of butts ,before my CS,and decided to enjoy the process and let the meat decide when it was done.

Smokin' convinced me to keep better records,since I couldn't open the door much.

I was cookin' several butts and someone had given me a 3.5 boneless butt to cook for them.

I decided to chart it exactly and it did everything backwards and wrong.

It drove me to excessive adult beverages.

I asked Smokin' to explain that one piece of meat to me and he said," darned if he knew-but I kept fine records".

Butts and brisket are not linear and small pieces of meat defy all logic.

I like to cook my butts around 250� and with the lean pig and 12% sol'n.,they will vary a bunch.

You may find that when that butt sets around 186�-188� you may need to reach in and shake the bone.

If it is close,you can foil it and throw it in the cooler for a couple of hrs. and it will rise another 6� or more.

The brisket is still somewhere near 1 hour/lb. if you are cooking packer trim.

You may want to check it when the flat hits around 185�,by sticking a fork or probe in it for tender.

You can foil and cooler it for 3 hrs. or so ,and it will cook on up another 6�-10�.

Hope this helps a little and be patient.

A 6 and 7 pounder were in my Baby Girl for 12 hours. At 180 degrees I was tired, and we wanted to go to bed. I foiled in H/D foil for 9 hours at 140. Never had such delicious meat in my life. One roast almost didn't make the party. Russ and I gorged ourselves pulling it the next morning. I put in a huge crockpot with just a bit of vinegar sauce and she held just fine for many hours while folks grazed. I've always loved pigmeat, but this was Glory Pig!!!!

The main thang? Don't sweat it.

quote:

Originally posted by Tom:
[qb]Howdy,dchem.

let the meat decide when it was done.

keep better records

I decided to chart it exactly and it did everything backwards and wrong.

Butts and brisket are not linear

I like to cook my butts around 250� and with the lean pig and 12% sol'n.,they will vary a bunch.

reach in and shake the bone.

If it is close,you can foil it and throw it in the cooler for a couple of hrs. and it will rise another 6� or more.

The brisket is still somewhere near 1 hour/lb. if you are cooking packer trim.

Hope this helps a little and be patient.[/qb]

Let the meat decide when it's done is fine if you don't mind preparing an impromptu meal for guests to eat because the Que decided it was going to get done 8 to 12 hours later than the target time.

I plotted, charted, and recorded the bejeez out of this chunk of meat and it was linear between 120� and 185�F.

How can I reach in and shake the bone when I'm not supposed to open the door for fear of such an act imposing another hour's cook time upon me?

The 9 pound brisket is one hour per pound and yet a 3.5 pound butt is 4 hours per pound? I'm afraid to bet a brisket on that one.

The butt was moist but had absolutely no smoke flavor. I'm not impressed at all..... dchem

OK, dchem, this has all gotten very complex and frustrating, huh? I been there.

I also see some significant temp swings in the smokette. Fuhgeddaboudit! After a couple of years with the unit, I find:

Butts take about 2 hrs/lb

Briskets take from 1 to 1.5 hrs/lb

These are for butts and briskets (flats from Sam's Club) in the 6-8 lb range... smaller or larger cuts: all bets are off

I set both at about 225, and just kick up to 250 if I want to hurry and finish. The unit is not highly precise (as you know). Since I do these overnight, I go with 225 to make sure they don't get done from midnight through 9am, then kick it up (or go lower) to try to "time it out" for the evening meal. If they get to "done," then pull em off and foil tightly and they will hold temp til dinner.

After about 190 on the butt, go ahead and open and check to see if it's soft and ready to pull.

At 190 on the brisket, it is good to slice... 200+ gets it falling apart... shredding.

Don't give up on the Smokette. The best there is for butts and briskets. I can still make a case for wood fires with chicken and ribs, though(!)

Ok Woodburner.... Make tha case...

I have yet to find a better way to do babybacks then to strip the membrane (as I learned here) and just smoke em... Heck last ones I did I didn't even rub. My Family and Friends are still talking about it.

As far as chicken goes, it's damn hard to beat a beer butt in a CS. I even end up with edible skin....

dchem,woodburner pretty well answered the questions.

The one thing they don't mention is that even the mistakes are edible in a CS.

Like woodburner,I still prefer to finish my chicken on something else- if I want a crispier skin.

It has been my observation that many competing cooks,using offsets, will still use a kettle to finish chicken before turn in or even a Traeger for the chicken alone.

dchem.

I saw your other post about the CS and it's unfortunately since you've only had the CS for a couple of days.

You mentioned the butt temps a lot, but not the smoker. You indicated the smoker was set at a particular temp, but you didn't indicate you'd "tested" the temp of the smoker itself. You mentioned see the temp fluctuations, so I'm guess you mapped to some degree. Did you use an extension cord?

First time I ran a Smokette years ago, it ran at a low temp because of a small gauge cord, but I solved that.

As for butts, shoulders, picnic's 2 hours is a good gauge.

Sorry about the lack of success, feel free to call CS customer service @1-800-423-0698 and they can help you out.

Smokin'

The other odd thing in dchem's sad story is that there was hardly any smoke flavor. With any reasonable amount of wood, like even 2oz (about 1 large chunk of the stuff that comes with), assuming the wood burned up, that seems bizarre.

Did smoke pour out of the top vent after about 1 hour in a nice white plume? If not, maybe either the bottom or top holes are blocked, or the thermostat is way off - but it was mentioned that that was checked during seasoning and was a bit high rather than low.

Using shredded wood or sawdust that burned up too fast, maybe? Incorrect setup of foil (should cover floor of oven, remove woodbox, press down foil so it won't get caught when woodbox replaced, poke drain hole through, cover swinging top of woodbox, not entire woodbox)?

Was there any fat or juice in the drip pan? If not, that would point to trouble.

A few thoughts on time/piece size: Formulas such as 2hrs/# only work in a very narrow weight range. Things working against them:

For lump-shaped pieces, distance that heat must conduct or steam/smoke must penetrate is proportional to piece dimensions - and they're more likely proportional to the square or cube root of the weight. A formula like the rules for broiling steak, time per inch thickness, might work better. Even so, I always check my steak with thermometer and eye.

Plus, meat is not a uniform solid like a piece of metal that'll heat according to the laws of thermodynamics. For one thing, it's full of water and fat that tend to cool the meat as they evaporate or melt. And it's going to take a certain amount of time for that to happen regardless of piece size.

Dchem:

Hang in there. I've had my smoker for about 2 months and have had a lot of the same stuff happen. The first butt I did was suppose to (by the book) take 7 hours. It took 14! HOWEVER,,,,most of your questions can be answered in this forum so don't freak out. I've learned a lot just hanging by the sidelines and reading. I have started to keep good records and have made some fabulous stuff sometimes by accident. But, the records help me to re-create the "accident". I love my smoker. I took it on vacation with me for 2 weeks and woooooed a bunch of people in the campgrounds with apple and hickory protruding from my stack,,,,Jack!!!

Be patient and have fun with it.