Time vs weight?


 
K

Ken Grove

TVWBB Member
Wow, did I blow it. How do you adjust for approximate time to cook as you increase the amount of meat you're cooking?

Prior to today, I've always cooked two butts (maybe 14-15 lbs Costco boneless) at a a time for pulled pork. Today I decided to double my butts (grand total about 30-35 lbs Costco boneless) and freeze all the extra for a camping trip we're doing in a couple weeks. Normally (15 lbs), it takes in the ballpark of 8-9 hrs at 225-250. Today, I'm already at 12 hrs, and the meet is only at about 175F and is still fairly firm. Cooking temps are about the same - fluctuating from 225-250 all day. I'm using a 22" WSM with water. Since its taken so long, I had to punt and order takeout for my wife, the kids, and I.

How should I have adjusted my estimated time (and thus start time) to account for the increased total weight? I had figured each butt was the same size, and at the same temp, each one individually should take around the same amount of time to properly cook (ok - in hindsight, this time the temps seem to have hovered closer to 225 than 250).
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">this time the temps seem to have hovered closer to 225 than 250) </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
It doesn't seem like it should but that can make a big difference.

Total weight isn't all that operative. Individual mass is the thing. Your normal cook of 15 lbs isn't, it's ~7.5 lbs - just two of them.

Increasing the quantity of butts shouldn't make for a dramatic difference. It's then only 4x7.5 lbs or so. The overall increase in mass can act like an increased heat sink - it is - so the come-up time might increase a bit, but the overall cook time won't increase measurably.

If, however, you are used to cooking at closer to 250 and today cooked at closer to 225 the difference can be more dramatic, irrespective of quantity.
 
Same deal as my prior efforts... not quite at room temp. I usually trim the butts the night before and have the rub ready, then pull them out of the refrig around 6:30 am to start warming, tend to starting the charcoal, put the rub on, and then put them on the wsm by around 8am. I figure the meat is probably at around 50-60F. Not as warm as I would like it, but *normally* has still had me finished by 4-5pm and in plenty of time for dinner. Today I followed the same routine, and I just pulled them off at 10:30 pm... 14 hrs for butts. Granted, the last couple hours I think the wsm was struggling to get to 225.

I clearly screwed this one up. Paraphrasing the previous posts, it sounds like the amount of meat on the grill makes no difference to the cooking time. On the other hand, more meat on the grill likely lowers the actual cooking temp, and while 240F and 220F might both fall in the "normal" range of smoking temps, I failed to take into account how much difference in total cooking time that temperature could mean...

Lesson learned. Not sure if I learned it well enough to 100% prevent a similar occurence or overcorrection, but a lesson learned.
 
It's not so much that it lowers the cooking temp. It's that more meat, especially more massive items like butts, acts as more of heat sink. This can stretch the come-up time of the cooker (the time between starting and hitting your targeted cooktemp).

If as a rule you hit, say, 250 on smaller cooks, then on a larger cook the WSM settles at a lower temp and you leave it alone, the cook will be longer, possibly substantially so depending on where it settles. If, however, you disallow settling, opening vents to push the temp to the same 250 of your smaller cooks, total cook time is really only affected by the slower come-up time at the outset.
 
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