WSM 22.5 capacity


 
Tim S (Timbo)

Tim S (Timbo)

New member
How many butts will fit in an unmodded WSM? I am supposed to do a cook for 70 people Wednesday and was told I would need 70# uncooked. Can I fit all this in the 22.5 WSM?
or do I need to do 2 cooks?

Tim
 
Hi Tim, I have on many occasion cooked a whole case of pork butts which typically come 8 to a case. It is a bit snug but I am confident you could get 10 in there with some creative placement. At 6-9lbs a peice you might get to your 70lb target cook. I hope this helps.
 
Tim,

I can fit 4x 10 lb butts per grate, albeit a little crammed. 4x 8 lbs fits a little better. So with 2 grates, that would be 64 lbs if you did 8x 8 lb butts. That would be more than enough for 70 ppl.

I use a 50% yield for butts. So 70 lbs would be 35 lbs cooked.

For sandwiches I do 4 oz portions, or 4 people per lb of cooked meat.

For plates I do 6 oz portions.

70 lbs uncooked, would be 35 lbs cooked, which would be 1/2 lb per person, which is a lot. But if they want that much, I would do 8x 8 lbs butts.
 
Originally posted by Tim S (Timbo):
How many butts will fit in an unmodded WSM? I am supposed to do a cook for 70 people Wednesday and was told I would need 70# uncooked. Can I fit all this in the 22.5 WSM?
or do I need to do 2 cooks?

Tim
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It will be close, go with boneless, trim some fat and/or tie with strings to condense a bit if you need to.

Alternatively do two cooks and reheat the first in the oven while the 2nd load is cooking
 
Like they all said, it will fit. Don't forget to account for the heat sink mass you will have. It will come up to temp much slower
 
I picked up 8 bone in butts @ Restaurant Depot, 74 lbs. ($1.29 a pound, is that a good price?).
I placed the package of 2 in the smoker, they look like they will fit ok.

I thought about doing 2 cooks, but I work 10 hrs today (Tuesday) and wont have enough time.
Dinner is at 6 Wednesday, so I plan on them being ready to pull @ 5 (with 2 helpers). So I plan to start the cook at 3am to be sure that such a large mass of pork goodness be done by 5.

Thanks for the input!

Look for the pics of this cook in Photo Gallery coming soon....
 
Originally posted by Tim S (Timbo):
I picked up 8 bone in butts @ Restaurant Depot, 74 lbs. ($1.29 a pound, is that a good price?).
I placed the package of 2 in the smoker, they look like they will fit ok.

I thought about doing 2 cooks, but I work 10 hrs today (Tuesday) and wont have enough time.
Dinner is at 6 Wednesday, so I plan on them being ready to pull @ 5 (with 2 helpers). So I plan to start the cook at 3am to be sure that such a large mass of pork goodness be done by 5.

Thanks for the input!

Look for the pics of this cook in Photo Gallery coming soon....
Click to expand...

Tim don't cut yourself too close on time, I personally would allow a little more time for this cook, consider putting them on 9 or 10 tonight and you can always hold them a couple of hours before pulling/eating. Mine go a whole lot closer to 16-18 hrs than 12-14. Just give it a thought. GOOD LUCK! Look forward to seeing the pics.

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Tim,

$1.29/lb is a good price. RD's case price ranges from $1.20-$1.40 / lb around me.

I would also suggest starting earlier. Not sure what you cook at, but I cook at 260-275° and 9-10 lb butts take 14-16 hours for me.

Once you get to temp they will cook in approximately the same amount as time as a smaller cook, but it will take you longer to get to temp with 74 lbs in there.

Hold in a cooler so you aren't worried.
 
Here's a case from Sam's that I did last month for a graduation party, eight butts that weighed a total of 66 lbs. Four on the top and four on the bottom rack, kind of a snug fit but they do shrink when cooking.

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Thanks Mike I was pretty happy with them, and the guests devoured them, along with eight whole chickens I also did. It was a combined three family graduation party so there were a lot of teenage boys that showed up. You can imagine the carnage.
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For my son's graduation party this weekend, I just did 6 butts at apprx. 8 lbs each in my 18.5 WSM. I cooked at about 230-238 degrees with a full water pan and they went a solid 22 hours till they hit 195.

Just an fyi
 
Matt that about where I get my best results, 225-235, even on multiple large hunks of meat. I just always try to add time for that unpredictable stall, you can always hold them, but you can't rush 'em. IMHO...

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I agree. I know that there might not be any significant difference in taste or moisture, etc between 220 and 250 to 300 degrees but for some reason I just have it in my brain that everything smoked should be low and slow, 220 degrees so thats what I aim for. If I overshoot by 15 t0 20 degress so be it..I dont lose sleep over it.

I did notice that cooking that much meat on the smoker, any type of temp adjustment took a long time to take effect. I wanted to 'bump' the temps up a few degrees (I think I just added more charcoal) and it took **** near 2 hours to get to where I wanted the temps to be.
 
I just did 6 butts at apprx. 8 lbs each in my 18.5 WSM. I cooked at about 230-238 degrees with a full water pan and they went a solid 22 hours till they hit 195.
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Wow Matt, I never thought a single cook would take that long but then again I never thought about doing a cook that large. Do you mind telling a little more about how it went and what you did?

@Tom your butts look great! Tom if I remember correctly you cook without water? Did you exchange the racks?

What R U using for rubs, any recipe's? Most brands I see referred to are not up here.

Timbo good luck. Looking forward to hearing how it went.
 
Originally posted by Gary S:



@Tom your butts look great! Tom if I remember correctly you cook without water? Did you exchange the racks?

What R U using for rubs, any recipe's? Most brands I see referred to are not up here.
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Thanks, and no I didn't swap the racks. I put the smaller ones on the bottom rack because I read that it runs a bit cooler, but I've never measured that for myself. And you're correct, no water. Sometimes I use just a foiled, empty pan and other times I use a pizza stone in the 18.5 and a 16 inch clay pot base in the 22.5.

I can't really tell much difference between the results using the stone or pot base and an empty pan so I just kind of alternate between them.

The rub is my own super secret recipe.
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Wow Matt, I never thought a single cook would take that long but then again I never thought about doing a cook that large. Do you mind telling a little more about how it went and what you did?
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This was my first time smoking that long in my WSM. I have a Chargriller off-set that I have smoked for 24 hours plus but that I believe is because it's so inefficient.

I started last Saturday and got the butts on straight out of the fridge at about 10:30 am. I did start the smoker going about 8:30 am so I had it warmed up and at about 270 degrees. I threw the butts on and kept an eye on things till they settled in a little bit. A few hours later I was hummin along at about 230 degrees and didnt have to touch it all day long.
At about 8:30 pm I noticed my temps dropping to about 200 degrees. I open all vents to no avail. At that point I realized that maybe I didnt have my charcoal ring as full as it could have been (although technically I did get 12 hours out of her since I started 2 hours earlier than I threw food on).
I opened the door and added a full chimney and one half along with 10 more lit. I saw that I had quite a few unburned coals in the ring yet so I knocked the ash down and watched the temps for the next couple hours till they setttled in again.
Remained rock steady at 238 till my food therm started beeping at 8:30 am Sunday morning. Took a couple more read outs with my meat therm and all butts were at minimum 195. I pulled off the butts, foiled and let them rest in a cooler till about noon when I proceeded to pull all 6 butts. Now I love pulled pork but by the time I pulled all of them I didnt want to see or smell pulled pork.....
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