3 butt cook screw ups and learning

[cody0707]

Thursday night I threw some rub on three 6.5lb boston butts. I got these for my son's birthday party. Everything I seen said a butt would take about 5-6 hours. So I woke up early on Saturday morning and got the PBC running at 5:30 a.m. Some of you may have read my previous thread about my PBC running hot. Well I decided to trust in the PBC and set my intake per the manufacturer's recommendation. To make the cooker work the same every time I decided to measure out how many briquettes I put in the coal basket.  I used one full chimney starter full of KBB charcoal and dumped it into the charcoal basket. I then grabbed another 25 briquettes and lit them in the chimney starter and got them until they were ashed over. I dumped those into the charcoal basket along with all the other briquettes and added a mini split of oak to the smoker.

I waited approximately 30 minutes to let the temps settle and the smoke from the split to get settled. I then hung my 3 pork butts. It was a tight fit but they all fit in there. I also put my maverick probe in there to see how the temps went during the cook. The plan was to let the butts cook until they hit 160 then foil them. I checked them at 3 hours and they were right around 130. I was a bit in a panic at this point. I was expecting them to be a bit hotter, not to mention my pit probe was reading lower than expected as well. I opened the intake more to help and also noticed the drippings of the 3 butts were putting out the coals. Opening the intake brought the temps back to where I was expecting them.

At the 4 hour mark I had made the decision they were going in the oven to finish. I put them in an aluminum pan and covered it in tin foil. They went in the oven at 375. Well what I wasn't expecting was the 3 butts put out so much juice it considerably slowed my cook. At the 6 hour mark I was hoping they would be at or close to 200 but instead they were right at 180. Well chopped pork it is. I chopped up the butts and apologized to the birthday guests. I was a bit disappointed and discouraged. Well that all changed when 30 people came through and made their plates and some came back for more. I was told by many that the pork was great. I thought the flavor was awesome but would have been happier with pulled pork. The smoke ring was very visible.

So a few tips so you don't repeat my misfortune:
-Stick with what the manufacture recommends for intake.
-When adding more meat plan on adding more time
-If possible have the food finish early, you can always reheat later
-More often than not you will be your toughest critic




 

[smokeasaurus]

Very sound advice for any cooker you may use. Glad everyone liked the grub 

[tomcrete1]

Looks great! Have had the same issues only to have guest tell me that it was the best! Sometimes we are our worst critics, I know I am....   

[muralboy]

Way to adjust to the situation.

[Hub]

Sorry things didn't work out the way you wanted, but you made a great save, anyway 

I think three 6lb. butts is more than the PBC can handle from a heat rise perspective.  A pan of charcoal has only so much potential to raise the temperature of a chunk of critter and three was too much.  An automatically regulated cooker (pellet cooker or stick burner with an electronic stoker, for instance) would have pushed air and/or fuel to keep the cavity temperature up so the rise could continue.  I've never cooked more than one butt in my PBC and it is a little slow even with just one.

Hub

[scottv]

You can also do pulled pork the day before. To me the flavor comes out more especially the smoke flavor the next day. It's easily reheated in a microwave or crockpot

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[jjjonz]

Looks like it turned out great. Yea it's best to listen to Noah for a few cooks and then start experimenting.

[HighOnSmoke]

Nice save!

[cody0707]

Do you all think three 6.5lb butts is to much for the PBC?

[muebe]

Do you all think three 6.5lb butts is to much for the PBC?

Butts take a long time to cook and you had close to 20lbs of meat. The energy required to cook that amount of meat is tremendous and a charcoal bed that was being exposed to drippings from all that meat. If they were foiled from the start that might have helped but then there would be very little flavor and bark.

So I think that might be too much. On a hot August day with the PBC in direct sunlight it might work otherwise I would stick with two of them.

[tlg4942]

 I think that yo NEED a second PBC! That will solve this issue.
Or
 if you want to mix it up a little get a Weber Kettle. Easier to explain why you NEED it. You know , watch some of these politicians on TV and apply that to food and she'll never know what happened.

[NickyDeuce]

  Im really surprised that they wouldn't come up to temp in oven.  The only thing I can think of is maybe if you had individually wrapped all three in foil instead of a foil pan wrapped with foil.  When mine get to 160 I double wrap in foil and then put on the grate.  Not sure how much that second layer of foil does, just the way i do it.