3: ~9# Pork Butt/ 18" WSM Smoke Question


 
C

Chris in Mi

TVWBB Member
This coming Wed night I will be smoking some butts for dinner Thu on the 18" WSM. Tried to get 2-10# butts, or close to 20#'s total but they ended up giving us 3: ~9# butts (27# total). Not sure how that math added up, but figured we can smoke them all to have extra pp.

All 3 will fit on the top rack IF I turn them on their side. Any reason not to smoke them all on the top rack, on their side? If possible, don't want to use both racks just for convenience of not having to "rotate" them to try to even the cooking time.

Hoping the top rack will hold ~27lbs. This will be my first large smoke. Figure it shouldn't be much different than smoking 1 larger butt...... May need to refuel a little more than normal, but otherwise the same.

TY!!!
 
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As long as you have air circulation around all 3, no worries. If they touch, just won't get any bark in those locations.
 
There's a lot of discussion saying "fat cap down" and or "fat cap up." You're bringing a whole new discussion to the forum: Fat cap on the side?

Will be most interested to how it all turns out
 
Yea I did that before and they turned out great. If you get a twin pack in cryo-vac they have a natural flat side where the two are touching, put that side down along with the flattest side on the third and point the FC out towards the heat.
They will shrink some and you can flip or rotate if the outside is getting darker.
Good luck!

Tim
 
TY all!!!

Chuck, nothing like a "curve ball", right?!?! Lol I was thinking the same thing.... Cap up or down, oh heck wth it, let's put it on the side!!!

I am considering flipping or turning the butts after a few hours. Then maybe turn them again to keep the fat cap to the outside for the overnight haul. Probably plan on putting them on around 6ish, turn around 9ish, then back to cap out around 12ish, and go to bed after all has re-stabilized. Will be camping so probably be up till 1ish (or later) anyway. Is this a crazy plan?

TY!
 
Yeah, I tend to agree - you might want to move them once after they shrink a bit but you should resist the temptation to make this harder than it has to be.
 
Chris.
I agree with Dave/G. Once you put them in the smoker, & you're up to cook temp, leave 'em alone. They'll be happy. If there is one thing that I learned early on in my quest for bbq was that unecessary fiddling/peeking/prodding just adds headaches to the cook. Trust your temp probes & sit back.
I've always gone with fat-cap up. As the fat renders it drips down the sides of the meat and naturally baste's it. (Well, that's my theory anyway, & I have no evidence whatsoever to back that up).
 
TY!!! Once they are on I will let them sit idle until maybe morning then....

Guess to get them all on the top rack I will go fc out as suggested. I usually go fc up also, but just didn't want to worry about different cook times for two levels.

TY!
 
Smoking the 3 butts on their side (fc out), all on the top rack couldn't have turned of any better!!! Fired up the smoker about 5pm last Wed, butts went on about 6. Loaded more charcoal about 7:30am via the hot squat method. Pulled them off around 3ish at about 205*. One thought I had was to use some skewers to keep them apart a little bit. But didn't remember we had some in the camper until the next morning!!! Oh well....

Enough of how the smoke went. Sorry, only took one pic.



Held them in the cooler for about 3-1/2hrs. Couldn't believe how hot the 3rd one still was when we pulled it about 5-1/2hrs later to put in the fridge. Omaha steak cooler worked great!!! Lol

The pp was a huge hit, even when we warmed up the pp on the sea hag ('toon rental) on Sat for lunch. Have hardly any left from almost 27lbs.

TY again!!!
 
Really interesting way to fit three butts on the top rack! I would never have thought to put them on end like that. Great job with those.
 
Chris in MI;
Nice job on the three butts! It just goes to show how versatile and genuinely USEFUL the WSM is! And the "great unwashed" wonders at our being such fans of Weber grills and smokers, huh?!!

Keep on smokin',
Dale53:wsm:
 
Looks great, Chris! Glad everything came out well. In the future, you can also use some butcher's twine to make them more uniform in size and give you more room on the grate.
 
TY all!!!!

Looking at the pic again is making me hungry and wishing we were still up at Higgins Lk in Northern Mi. Lol

TY for the tip on the butchers twine. Have to get some to have on hand. Had I remembered we had the skewers I would have used those to keep the butts from touching. It all worked well though.

Mark,

Main reason I tried putting all three on the top rack is due to the different cooking temps. Wanted to keep everything as close as possible. Even the butcher helped by having the butts so close in weight.

TY again to all!!!

Until the next smoke.....
 
Yup! That looks like some major Porkfection right there...

Glad it turned out - it never ceases to amaze me at how fast a large sum of PP can "vanish" :confused:
 
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