Large Cook Planned - Advice Please

Hello All,

I was planning on smoking the following starting Friday night around 6:00 PM, and I have a couple questions.

2 8 lbs. Pork Butts
1 17 - 18 lbs. Brisket
1 20 lbs. Chuck Roll

I'm planning on using the soup can method to add a third grate between the top and bottom grate and haven't yet bought the meat.

My Questions
#1 Think I'll be able to get all that meat on the WSM using the soup can method?
#2 If so, what do you think of the following meat order? Bottom = Butts, Middle = Brisket, Top = Chuck Roll
#3 Is it OK for the brisket to be touching the butts and chuck roll?
#4 Is it OK if the brisket is touching the sides of the WSM?
#5 Any ideas on cooking time? I'm thinking at least 24 hours.

Thanks for any help you can offer!

John

I'm sure you want info from someone that's knowledgeable, but I'll give it a shot. As for fitting -- I think you need the chuck roll on top. Whether you can fit rhe brisket and butts beneath depends on whether either of them are thinner than your soup cans. For example, if your brisket is thinner than the cans, put that on bottom in the "can" level. The butts should fit on the rack above that. Of course, try this all out before you light your coals.

As for touching meat, the more they touch, the less surface area is exposed to smoke. In addition, the less surface area is exposed to heat -- depending out how much is touching, you may turn two 20* hunks of beef into one 40* -- which takes more than 2x the cooking time.

Touching the WSM? How clean is your WSM?

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by ROB O:
Hey there JG. I did a cook similar to this one a few months ago. From bottom of the WSM to the top: 7 lb back cut brisket / 10 lb brisket / 20 lb chuck roll. I don't know the first thing about butts.

Here are my thoughts:



My Questions:
#1 Think I'll be able to get all that meat on the WSM using the soup can method?

Yes. Don't be afraid to use bricks, Fosters beer cans, anything that'll fit and won't melt.

#2 If so, what do you think of the following meat order? Bottom = Butts, Middle = Brisket, Top = Chuck Roll

I'd like to see you put the butts on top of the brisket. Pork fat acts as a nice basting agent for the brisket.

I believe in fat side down when cooking the brisket since that's what Jim Minion preaches and it's worked great for me. (pull it at 180 and rest it foiled for at least 2 hours fat side up in a preheated cooler.)


#3 Is it OK for the brisket to be touching the butts and chuck roll?

Absolutely not for all the reasons Stone mentions plus you'll end up with this gummy, gluey, very unapetizing surface anywhere the two surfaces were touching.


#4 Is it OK if the brisket is touching the sides of the WSM?

No. You'll end up with beef jerky. There's a heat wall that rises around the edges of the water pan up the side of the WSM. It's much too hot for que and anything that close to the edge will cook much faster than anything inside the "clylinder" above and inside the water pan.

To avoid this either: 1) tie the sides of the brisket with butcher's twine and pull the edges of the brisket so they don't touch the side of the WSM or 2) cover the edges of the brisket that hang over your rack with foil. About 1" width on the top and bottom should cover it.

BTW, It's ok to cut the chuck roll in half and stack it with the long ends facing up to save grill space. Kind of like two flag poles instead of a single fallen tree if that image makes sense to you. This may also speed up your cook a little.

#5 Any ideas on cooking time? I'm thinking at least 24 hours.

At least. If I had to guess a time for just the Chuck roll I'd say 26 hours but if it's a really fatty one it could take longer. (of course it's also going to depend on when you foil it.)

I wish I could be more help here but I just don't know anything about butts.

If pressed I'd say give it 30 hours and allow 4 hours for resting.

Hope this helps. With any luck someone like Bryan S will see the post. He's the chuck roll king and knows a thing or two about butts.

Let us know how it turns out and good luck. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

All the advise was right on.
The brisket can be put on the bottom grate. You can let it run up the sides on both ends, use foil shinny side out to under both ends to help protect from direct heat. It will shrink up in lenght during the cook.

Your other choice is to seperate the point from the flat along the fat line and then push the point over the flat shorting the over all lenght but it will make it taller overall.
Jim

I know you can do pork on one level and briskets on 2 using the soupcan method, but I don't know about the thickness of the roll. It depends, but I'd do 2 separate BBQ runs or borrow another WSM, but that's just me.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by ROB O:
#4 Is it OK if the brisket is touching the sides of the WSM?

No. You'll end up with beef jerky. There's a heat wall that rises around the edges of the water pan up the side of the WSM. It's much too hot for que and anything that close to the edge will cook much faster than anything inside the "clylinder" above and inside the water pan.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Rob -- you're certainly right about the burnt bits, but all my briskets have hung over the edge of the grate. They shrink enough (and fast enough) that only a small piece gets real hard. And it ain't bad tasting.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Stone:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by ROB O:
#4 Is it OK if the brisket is touching the sides of the WSM?

No. You'll end up with beef jerky. There's a heat wall that rises around the edges of the water pan up the side of the WSM. It's much too hot for que and anything that close to the edge will cook much faster than anything inside the "clylinder" above and inside the water pan.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Rob -- you're certainly right about the burnt bits, but all my briskets have hung over the edge of the grate. They shrink enough (and fast enough) that only a small piece gets real hard. And it ain't bad tasting. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


Ya' know Stone. I was thinking about this on my drive home tonight and you're right. That's the thing about BBQing. There's no "right" way to do it.

Frankly I like the crispy ends myself. When I was answering John's post i passed back some information a few folks I respect passed on to me when I was first learning. They mentioned to avoid having the burnt sides ( I guess because one or two of them compete ) and I've been doing it that way ever since.

So, John if you're out there.... If you like the tips of your brisket "crispy" disregard the advice about foiling the edges.

I believe this brisket was of similar weight to yours.

I ended up cutting it in half, if I recall right I left the point attached to the flat and just cut off the flat that wouldn't fit. Then I cooked the piece I cut off another time.

That's an ambitious cook you have planned there and a few $$$ on all that meat. I'd suggest you split it into two cooks. Perhaps the brisket and the chuck roll would be good together (weight wise). Cook the pulled pork ahead of time then reheat and hold in a crock pot with juice, broth, BBQ sauce etc.

One minor point about brisket orientation: <BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> ...I believe in fat side up on the brisket since that's what Jim Minion preaches and it's worked great for me. (pull it at 180 and rest it foiled for at least 2 hours fat side up in a preheated cooler.)
... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I think Jim actually advocates fat side DOWN for cooking brisket then fat side up when resting in a cooler.

Shawn, You're right. Something weird went on with that post. I wrote fat side up then proofed it. Caugh t my error and wrote fat side down.

Now... for some weird reason I have two posts up on the board. I'm going to try to delete the errant one.

Thanks to everyone for all the responses. Sorry for my delayed response, but I had some issues logging into my Groupee account.

I did some measuring and found that there are 8 inches between the top and bottom grate. The soup cans I have are 4 inches tall, which means whatever goes on the bottom and middle grate needs to be less than 4 inches thick. A large brisket that needs to be folded definately won't fit in that space, unless I seperate the point from the flat like Jim said. Maybe then I could cook the point with the butts on the middle grate.

Based on the feedback and measurements I took, I think I'm going to trim the cook down to the butts and chuck roll. After doing my first chuck roll, I became addicted to them, and think they even better than brisket. The only reason I was going to do this large cook was so that I could give the brisket a shot again.

Honestly, I wish I could just get another smoker...

John, the WSM top grate should fit as your middle grate or lower grate with just a little fiddling to get it past the brackets. Then use your 3rd grate which I'm guessing is smaller like the lower WSM grate and you can mount it higher than the stock WSM brackets. Pretty sure you could use 6" grate spacers then the top grate would be at 12" from bottom grate and 4" into the lid above the top of WSM mid-section.

You might even be able to go a little higher. Put the spacers on bottom rack right over the brackets to reduce the risk of bending lower grate.

My point is you can use bigger spacers and lift the top rack into lid space if you use a smaller grate on top.


Edit: I haven't tried this, maybe I don't have the numbers right you can't quite put a lower WSM grate 4" above where the top rack should sit maybe it's only 3".

My earlier suggestion to split it into two cooks wasn't because I thought you can't do the cook you want to do. I suggested two cooks because I thought it might be a pain to get at those two lower racks for things like mop, baste, flip, foil, measure temperature and remove lower rack items.

You may end up having the lid off for extended periods of time while doing these things because you have to remove grates and meat and rebuild your grate assembly to get the meat back in.

24 hours is just too long a cook for safety. The meat is going to be in the danger zone of 40f to 140f for way more than 4 hours.

2 monster chuck rolls with a combined weight of 50 pounds never takes more than 12 to 18 in my experience. Then again I'm not fixated on 225 and will happily cook at a higher temp of 275.

Even with a WSM loaded to the gills with 4 grates I've never gone over 18 hours. In double blind taste testing my meat has a habit of doing OK

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Konrad Haskins:
24 hours is just too long a cook for safety. The meat is going to be in the danger zone of 40f to 140f for way more than 4 hours. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Konrad, No doubt you do a nice que but I haven't had a problem yet getting even my largest cooks up past 140 in under 4 hours.

It's the plateaus around 160 that are particularly nasty. During my last big chuckroll cook I had one piece hang out there for over 12 hours then take another 6 to get up to 200. (I foil at 165). All told on this particular cook I had 35 lbs of meat going on 3 grates with the chuck roll on the top grate.

It is not the internal temps one should be concerned with in regards to bacteria--it is the surface temps, and by that I mean the surface of the meat. If there is sufficient heat and good airflow around the meat it is likely that the surface temp of the meat will rise above the top of the 'danger zone' (140) quickly enough (less than two hours). Packing the WSM (or any cooker) with a lot of meat could have a deleterious effect if the heat was insufficient and/or the airflow was impeded (all that cold meat squashed in there closely). I'm not saying it will happen, just that it could. Consider it in planning for any cook, regardless of meat quantity.

There are three exceptions to the above:

1) Trichina, once a real concern in pork and now very rare, is not a surface-borne organism. It is killed at 137, however.

2) Ground meat (like hamburger or ground pork) may have harmful bacteria inside if they were present on the surface when the meat was mixed or formed into patties. The mixing distributes the bacteria throughout.

3) Injected meat. If the injector needle, the solution, or the surface of the meat where the puncture is made is contaminated, the process of injection could push the bacteria inside the meat.

Again: It is the surface temp of the meat that should not remain between 40 and 140 degrees for more than two hours.

There may be a 4th consideration: boneless cuts that have had a bone removed...boneless butt.

If the meat, butt or otherwise, was boned correctly (swiftly, with a clean knife, clean or gloved hands,in a cold environment),it shouldn't be cause for concern. But you're right: Any additional steps in the processing between slaughter and sale to the consumer (or for that matter between sale to the consumer and consumption) might open the proverbial door.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by ROB O:
It's the plateaus around 160 that are particularly nasty. During my last big chuckroll cook I had one piece hang out there for over 12 hours then take another 6 to get up to 200. (I foil at 165). All told on this particular cook I had 35 lbs of meat going on 3 grates with the chuck roll on the top grate. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Rob your leaving out the important detail of what temp you were cooking at. For Chuck I foil after 4 hours at 275f and then keep cooking at 275f till internal is around 200f.

The Plateau in the meat temp is the connective tissue breaking down. It never takes me as long as you describe and I've cooked a few thousand pounds of it in the past year. So I can only assume your cooking at a lower temp.

Well, the cook is finished. I decided to go with my original plan and started it yesterday at 4:00, right before the Pat's game, instead of Friday. It was nearly impossible for me to find a Chuck Roll, which is why I put it off. Half the time it seems like nobody knows what I'm talking about when I asked for one.

Here is how I layed it out:

Top Grate = 22 lb. chuck Roll
Middle Grate = 2 x 8 lb. pork butts
Bottom Grate = 16 lb brisket

Cooking Time

Butts = 18 hours
Brisket = 18 hours
Chuck Roll = 20 hours

It was a very cold night, I think in the mid teens. It took awhile for the cooker to come up to temp, but after a couple hours it was cranking away at 250. I dozed off around midnight though without setting the alarm. I woke up at 6:00 with the cooker at 170. Don't know how long it was like that, but I brought it up to temp within 30 minutes.

All in all, the cook went well. All the meat taste good, although the brisket is a bit dry. I wish that I'd foiled the brisket and butts earlier than I did (6:00 when I woke up).

Even though things went well, I think from now on I'm going to skip using the middle grate. I did it this time as an experiment more than anything else, but to be honest, cooking three things at once is a lot of work. I think two seperate cooks would have been less of a hassle.

I'm glad it worked out fairly well for you. I agree with you on the large mixed meat cooks. I prefer doing two instead of one. I do like the middle grate for a large single meat short cook like chicken or sausage though.

Glad it worked out for you John. I had the same problem finding chuck rolls. There's a meat chart Chris has posted on the site (do a search on meat chart) and and take it to your butcher.

Konrad, you're absolutely right about the foiling. I foiled at 165. I'll see if I can find the cooking log from that cook. For what it's worth I'd actually cut the chuck roll in half and foiled each half separately. One half was, as I recall pulled 3 hours before the other. Air flow shouldn't have been a problem since I was using a 10 cfm guru.

Go figure?