First time pork butt smoking quandaries - with pictures!

Today I fired up my 18" WSM for the second time (tried to make brisket a week ago to mixed results) in an attempt to smoke a pork butt. I had some temperature issues throughout the cook that have left me with a few questions, but when it was all said and done I had some tasty pulled pork to eat so it worked out in the end. Here's a quick recap of the cook with pictures:

I purchased a 4 lb Boston butt from the local grocer:



I trimmed the fat from the bottom and some other bits here and there before applying the rub, which I did 12 hours before the actual cooking:



I started my WSM by filling the charcoal ring with unlit K and some hickory chunks and apple chips, then placed about 20 lit coals on top in the middle. The temperature here in Columbus was about 35 degrees, so I initially opted to leave the water pan empty. But after the first hour, the lid temeprature was reading ~260 degrees (and rising) so I filled up the water pan - was that a reasonable thing to do?


After 4.5 hours, I placed a remote thermometer into the pork butt and the temperature read 165. I expected 6-8 hours to cook this 4 lb butt so that seemed ok. What has me confounded is over the last 2.5 hours of the 8 hour cook, the temperature quickly got up to about 176 degrees and then plateaued. (I had other things to do today so I had to pull it after 8 hours even though the temperature still read 176.) I know that there are plateaus when cooking meats, but this seemed wrong to me? The lid thermometer read between 210-225 during this entire time. Anyway, here is the butt after I took it out of the smoker and foiled it for 30 minutes.



And here is the final product after pulling. It was a little tougher to pull than expected, but it it tasted good and was not overly chewy so at least I had that going for me.



If anyone has any thoughts on why the 4 lb pork butt was locked in at 176 degrees from hour 5.5 to hour 8 of the cook despite the lid reading staying in the 210-225 range, I would love to hear them. Thanks for reading!

My experience is that a pork shoulder will sit at 170-180 for quite a while before it pops up to the 190 range which is where I like to take it off for fall-apart doneness. I have experienced difficulties pulling the shoulder apart when I've taken it off beforehand.

I usually cook a shoulder/butt (one purchased at Costco or Sam's club so not a full shoulder) for around 14 hours which is right about the 190 degree timeframe.

Welcome to the VWB forum Luke!
First of all, I don't use water in the pan, just foil it to catch the drippings with an easy clean up afterwards... I trim no fat, season it the night before - wrap it in saran then season it again before I put it on the smoker. The smallest butt I've done was about 7 lbs and cooking it to an internal temp of 195-200' at 250 degrees takes a little over an hour a pound. And it seems to me the outside temperture has little effect on the results of my cooks. As far as the meat standing pat at a temp for a period of time, I think that's common.
Yours looks terrific. Nice bark and colour after you've pulled it. Looks Great!

I agree with Joe. I've pulled pork off at around 190-195 and some of it was still hard to pull . I just put it back on or throw it in the oven for a little longer time till it's done.Some muscles of the pork are readier earlier than others or as we say on this site"it's done when It's done". I always cook around 250-260 at the lid when doing low and slow

I never trim a butt. I cook it fat cap up and when I'm pulling it I will remove some of the fat.
That fat helps tenderize it while its smoking/cooking.

Thanks for all of the advice guys! I feel better having read the replies; it seems like a little more time in the WSM and/or a higher cooking temperature would have got me over the hump and up to the 190s.

What does seasoning the meat a second time do? Jim mentioned it in his post, and the "Mr. Brown" recipe calls for it as well, but it's not clear to me why the initial application of rub is not enough?

I believe the first rubbin' penetrates the pork to some point, adding flavour... then the second rubbin' helps make the bark tasty as well as exposes the lovely face of the butt when it's all cooked up

Just to give you a number, I checked my notes for a recent butt cook, 7 pounds, and the temperature basically flatlined for four hours. Once it broke through it was done in another hour. It was about a 12 hour cook, so it basically spent a third of the cook at the same temperature.

Basically what's going on is that the energy's going into various chemical processes (creating gelatin) and not raising the temperature. That's fine, just let it do its thing.

Re - seasoning - I mostly do touch up on the second pass - just kind of fill in anything that's suffered as the meat's produced juices, and scatter a bit around the rest. But if you just do the last minute rub there's no "soak time" plus it just doesn't seem to stick that well.

Hey Luke;

Actually your finished pulled pork looked mighty appetizing and moist. Nice smoke ring and great looking bark too.
That 175 degree stall point you experienced while cooking your pork is the hardest stall point to push thru. Supposedly there are 3 stall points but I have noticed the big ones are at or around 150 then again at 175.
I remember I was cruising thru a cooking and thought I was going to be way ahead of my target completion when I would serve the BBQ. However, I hit the 175 stall point and I thought it would never push thru it and move ahead. Of course it did as the collagen broke down, but 175 internal to 195 internal (195 is my completion target temp) is the longest period to me. One way I have fudged that stall time is to foil the butts for a bit to get the internal temp kicked into gear. By this (175 internal)time, all of your nice smoke has permeated the meat so you really dont lose anything there. Be sure to sprinkle a small bit of rub on the meat as you open the foil to dry it out before pulling it off the grill and resting it. Drying it back out will firm the bark up and makes a perfect texture.
One additional side note is that competition cookers have been discussing that pork is often becoming more and more difficult to cook to a tender state. We believe this has to do with the growth hormones used in raising pigs. With foiling, you can hedge the tenderness issues and make perfect pork consistently.

Luke...one additional thought about monitoring your smoker's cooking temperature. The dial guage on the WSM dome can be mighty tricky to judge whats going on inside your smoker. Add to that the fact that these thermometers can vary greatly from one WSM to another due to their bi-metalic design characteristics. An easy and consistent way to really find out whats going on inside your WSM is to buy a digital thermometer with probes. I personally use a Redi-Check ET-73 (meat and chamber probe comes with it) for around $40. I probe the meat plus it allows me to affix a cooking chamber probe on the cooking grate beside the meat. Dome temps dont really mean as much as grate temps since the meat feels the grate....not the dome.
Not trying to sell you a thermometer....just making your cooking efforts easier.

As others have said, it can take quite a while to get through the temp stall. I just got my WSM for Christmas so I only have a few smokes under my belt as well. I was suprised that when I did my first butt smoke (two 7 lbers) it took almost 13 hours to reach 195-200 and be fork tender. Turned out great though! What part of C-bus are you in? I live in Powell.

Thanks for the tips Morrey! I can definitely see how a chamber probe would be helpful, I will have to pick one up soon. I also had not considered foiling; that would have been a smart move for me considering my time constraints.

Hi Jason! I live down in Clintonville. The way I see it, I've got about 8 months to get my WSM act together before OSU tailgating starts!