Bottom Vent Settings for Butt?

It's been a while for me and my WSM
Lots of wind and cold here in Chicago is my excuse. Anyway I'm preparing for some butts this weekend and want to bounce a question of this tremendous board populous.

My first butt session last year was so good I should have retired on that high note. It was all down hill from there. Maybe that's the real reason for taking some time off. After reading some of the more recent posts on the board I think I was starving the fire for oxygen. Two times I got a creosote taste to my bark ? stung my mouth to taste it. The wood chunks were black but did not disintegrate to ash, rather chunks of very fragile black coals. My total cook time at 225 was about 10 hours to 190f. I used the Minion method with a full water pan. Coals were burning out at about 9hrs ? perhaps a full Weber chimney is too much for the Minion method. For first 2/3 of the session I had two vents open ? and one 1/3 open. At about 8hr I had to open all full as fire was dying out. How much do you leave your vents open with the minion method to maintain 225f? How do you get burn times exceeding 10 hours?

Thanks for your feedback.

For a longer burn start with less burning coals (half of a chimney say). The other factor is wind, get it out of the wind and your burn will be longer.
I don't worry about pit temps climbing to
265? during the cook, this allows a cleaner burn and as long as you keep pit temps under
275? the rub won't burn. I'm not sure from your post how much wood you are using but you may want to pull the wood after 4 hours from the pit. That will give you smoke but limit the chance of making creosote while maintaining the pit temps you are after.
On windy days a wind break and one vent fully open (down wind vent) maybe a help.
Good luck
Jim

Musky:

Check out the thread in the beginner's section on "Panless Minion Cooking Method", dated 2/22/01. I will be glad to share more details with you on my limited WSM cooks with boston butts if you want to e-mail me personally. I think you made some "lump charcoal" out of your smoke wood like I did.

I may be doing something wrong, but have yet to get 190 degree internal meat temp in less than 18 hours @ 225 cooking temp. range on any of my cooks. (Most of my experience has been with charcoal and/or electric ECB's however.) My thermometers may be suspect, and I'm going to check them this coming weekend! Getting 18 hours on one load of charcoal (using a full "plus" charcoal chamber/ring) has not been a problem so far, but I've done a pretty good job of sheltering my smoker, and have been blessed with mild winter temps in KY. I also started with approximately 1/2 chimney (50 kingsford briquettes) as Jim Minion recommended, and dumped them on top of the full ring of unlit charcoal.

One other learning for me, I had a favorite charcoal (Kroger brand) with my ECB's, but it just doesn't maintain the length of burn and heat as well as the Kingsford. Other posts on this site would support this theory.

Good luck!

Thanks for the help.

I just re-read the Chris' instructions for butt with his timetable. I noticed that you had the bottom vents at 20% early, got a spike, and for a short period went to 0% on all.

Reading this confused me a bit. I was sure I was starving my fire resulting in creosote but I'm sure I didn't do much different from your settings Chris. Have you had any Creosote result from closing the vents?

Thanks.

Musky-Hunter,

To be completely honest with you, for the last few years I've read the descriptions that people post about creosote and how it tastes and I can't relate it to anything I've ever experienced when making BBQ. Maybe I've been lucky, I don't know. It certainly did not turn out that way for the pork butt described on the Web site that you're referring to.

Also, it's common for me to have leftover wood chunks that do not disintegrate completely, leaving charcoal-like pieces, especially during short cooks, and sometimes even during the long ones. But again I've never found that to affect the taste of anything, either.

Just my experience, yours may vary.

Regards,
Chris

Determined not to give up on my WSM (Still have great memories of my few great successes to keep me going), I tried my luck with two butts last night. I want to thank everyone on this board for their help and ask for some additional feedback. I hope I haven?t left out any important details. Please let me know your thoughts on why I can?t get my WSM to last more than 7-8hrs? Thanks again for your help.

In Chicago there was only a slight breeze and temps dipped to 20f overnight. I did not use a wind shield.

10:00pm - Dumped 20 coals and spread evenly over top of full level ring of Kingsford. After filling the water pan, it tipped over and filled the bottom bowl of the WSM. I must not have checked to be sure the pan was installed properly after moving the WSM to its cooking location. With a hot fire, I had to tip the unit to pour as much water as possible through the bottom vents. (That was embarrassing).

10:30pm I applied three 8x1x2 pieces of split Oak and 4 small chunks of Hickory to the fire. I then placed two 4.75lb pork shoulder blade roasts on top rack. Lid temp 210f.

11:30pm ? two vents at 20% open, one at 30% open, lid temp 230f

12:30am ? two vents at 20% open, one at 30% open, lid temp 240f

5:30am ? only 30% fuel remaining. Removed one flaming log and all other wood. (I believe this log started to flame because I had the lid off). Turned meat. There was about a cup of water remaining in the pan. I opted to not refill the pan. Lid temp 240f. Meat temp 160f.

7:00am ? only 10% fuel remaining. Added 20 coals. Water pan empty, did not refill. Meet 160f. Lid temp 240f. Two vents at 80% open, one at 30% open.

8:00am ? Lid temp 240f. Meet at 160f. 3 Vents at 80% open.

9:00am ? Meet temp 165f. Lid temp 250f. Two vents at 50% open, one at 20% open.

10:00am ? Meet temp 176. Lid temp 230f. Virtually no fuel remaining. Replenished 20 coals, all vents 100% open.

11:30am ? Meet temp 181. Lid temp 260f. Two vents at 100% open, one at 30% open.

12:15pm ? Meet temp 190f. Removed both butts and wrapped in foil to set one hour.

The end product was moist and pulled almost too easy. The brown however was a bit disappointing. Unfortunately once again I got a creosote taste. This time it was only mild but it was present. I was told the wood I used was oak and it appeared to be oak to me but after three creosote episodes, maybe my wood is suspect.

Oh no here it goes.Hey everyone has an opinion,mine are usually right. Musky hunter try a differant brand of charcoal! I think kingsford stinks when its starting.I have gotten an oily black coating with it when grilling. Try to find some 100% hardwood like nature glo. I use lump when I can find it. Berger(?)bros. in chicago sells lump by the truck load or they did a couple of years ago.
I know alot of people here like the kingsford and thats fine.I prefer to cook with things i feel comfortable with.

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Good Smokin
Dan

The problem wasn't charcoal it was wood,
hickory and oak are two of the stronger woods you can use. Take your fist and ball it up, use two or three piece of wood that size for the whole cook. If you want use 1 piece oak and 1 hickory that's plenty for two butts. The creosote problem will go away
if you cut back on wood. After the 4 hour mark (internal temp of the butts at 140?) you aren't making any more smokering, you could remove the wood and go with just charcoal. You may want to try fruit woods and make sure that you like the flavor of oak and hickory.
Jim