Holding Pork Butts

How long can you hold 2 pork butts in a cooler after they are done on the WSM? The cooler is a Coleman steel sided cooler so the cooler it self is of good quality.

Longest I ever did was two hours and that was in a plastic heavy duty cooler. I forget the name of it but I had it in heavy duty foil and wrapped in a towel and it was still real hot when I took it out.

I have held for 5 hours double wrapped in foil with towels on the bottom and top. Also i left the probes in so I could keep track of the temps.

My longest was about 4 hours.

During the summer, I let the cooler and towels sit in the sun so they are nice and warm. Even after 4 hours, the butt was still a bit hot to pull. So it could have held been longer.

I've gone as much as 5 hours. Pulled off the WSM at 190°, double foil wrap, one plastic wrap and roll in a big beach towel and then in a good plastic igloo cooler. When I pulled them (2) out they were still at 145°.

5 hours, with testing for temp when ready to pull. Also, fwiw, I use stacks of old newspaper Rather than towels as they insulate better.

I recently cooked two overnight butts. For some reason they were done around 10:00am. I put them in a cooler wrapped in foil and wrapped and covered in towels. I opened the cooler at 5:00pm and the meat was still almost too hot to touch. It was excellent.

Thanks everyone, this will make things easier. I was trying to figure out when to start 2 8 pound butts to have them done at a certain time but with the cooler hold times that you have reported it give me some wiggle room.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Chet Kreidler:
Thanks everyone, this will make things easier. I was trying to figure out when to start 2 8 pound butts to have them done at a certain time but with the cooler hold times that you have reported it give me some wiggle room. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I've had 8 lbs butts take 9 hours and them take 15. I start early now because the cooler thing works so well. As everyone stated, 5 hours is no problem the cooler if foiled and insulated.

My cook from Friday night took about 13 hours or so. Didn't get the individual weights, but both butts weighed in at 17 lbs.

If you start to run short on time and need them ready, you can get them to temp faster by foiling the butts at the end of the smoke. You can easily get 10 degrees in an hour. However, I always like my meat to be done early so it can rest.