Cooking 5 Boston Butts


 

Bayne Smith

New member
Next weekend, I plan to cook 5 boston butts on my Weber 22.5. I'm guessing I'll have around 50-60 lbs total. I don't have a lot of experience with the Weber and I am trying to plan the cook to be ready for a party.

I should be able to get them on around 7:00 am and they need to be ready to serve around 6:00 pm, so I figure I have a cook time of around 9-10 hours. I'm thinking I'll probably end of wrapping them to make sure I can get them done on time. Any suggestions on cook time and temperature, method (crutch versus no crutch), etc? I have to have them ready to serve at 6:00, so I figure they need to come off at least an hour early to cool down and get ready to pull.

Comments appreciated.

Thanks
 
Welcome aboard Bayne. Being from Georgia I'm guessing these won't be your first Pork Butts but don't know so if I'm giving unneeded advice I apologize. With Butts you're better off finishing early than late. You can hold them wrapped in foil and towels in a cooler for 4 hours without problems. You can also hold them in the oven wrapped in foil. I only cooked 5 butts on my 18.5 WSM and fortunately I was cooking a day ahead of time. 5 butts with the heaviest being 8.5 lb. and starting at 225° the last butt came off at the 22 hour mark. After 16 hours I cranked it up to 250-275. I did not wrap them in foil during the cook.

To meet your time schedule I think you'll need to cook them at 275 to 300 and after 4 hours double wrap them in heavy duty foil. If you can finish the cook by 4 that will give them a good rest. After a 2 hour rest they will still be very warm so unless you have leather hands a couple of forks for puling would be a good idea.

Are you going to have water in the pan? Either way you'll burn a lot of charcoal. Ask as many questions as you can come up with.
 
Thanks Lew - I've cooked many butts on my BGE and a few on the Smokey Mountain, but never done this many at once on a schedule. I was thinking I would need to go a bit quicker with higher heat so I'll shoot for the temp you suggested. I also ordered some butcher paper and thought I would give that a try instead of foil.

Welcome aboard Bayne. Being from Georgia I'm guessing these won't be your first Pork Butts but don't know so if I'm giving unneeded advice I apologize. With Butts you're better off finishing early than late. You can hold them wrapped in foil and towels in a cooler for 4 hours without problems. You can also hold them in the oven wrapped in foil. I only cooked 5 butts on my 18.5 WSM and fortunately I was cooking a day ahead of time. 5 butts with the heaviest being 8.5 lb. and starting at 225° the last butt came off at the 22 hour mark. After 16 hours I cranked it up to 250-275. I did not wrap them in foil during the cook.

To meet your time schedule I think you'll need to cook them at 275 to 300 and after 4 hours double wrap them in heavy duty foil. If you can finish the cook by 4 that will give them a good rest. After a 2 hour rest they will still be very warm so unless you have leather hands a couple of forks for puling would be a good idea.

Are you going to have water in the pan? Either way you'll burn a lot of charcoal. Ask as many questions as you can come up with.
 
Hopefully someone that cooks a lot of HH stuff will chime in. I normally only do Chicken with high heat but I have occasionally cranked it up to finish a cook on time. Good luck and let us know how it works out..
 
Welcome aboard indeed! I’d start earlier, maybe about five but, that’s just for added end of cook flexibility and beverage consumption, some will doubtless be done sooner than others and there will be a lot of pulling to do!
Have a fine time!
 
5 butts is a lot of cold mass, that equals a heat sink, but doable at HH like Lew suggested.
Obviously no water. Minion start and leave all vents wide open. It should take like an hour or two to climb up to 275+, then just let it ride till you like the color.
I get better color on my top rack so you might want to rotate top to bottom.
I never tried BP, but always foil on HH when the color looks good and I see some bone.
Normally that takes 8-9 hrs for the same sized butt.
The last time I did 6- 10lb'rs I started at 4.30 am and they finished round 2pm.
HTH and good luck!

Tim
 
Excellent recommendations Timothy, going higher will be smarter for the amount of cold mass!
I just looked at the “Cooking in Bulk” thread which reaffirms my desire to not cook for more than twenty ever again, I’ve done bigger, and the 50% tip(on that one) made me feel pretty good but, the four weeks of very intense planning (which were not all hours billed, just mind numbing) reduced margin by a lot, I figured I actually made about $3.25 an hour just in labor. Client covered product.
Catering is a sleep depriving, nerve wracking business as a hobby. I think my “Pro” days are over. I’ll help friends but as a commercial venture, not on your tintype!
 
If you're cooking for a party I would strongly suggest starting the cook so if everything goes wrong you'll still have everything rested and ready several hours before you need it. Were it me, I'd want everything off the smoker no later than noon. That much pork will stay warm in a cooler for many hours.

In fact, I'll warn here about it possibly continuing to cook in the cooler. Last year I did four butts. They each came off at different times but I immediately wrapped them and put them in the cooler. I had planned to be done well ahead of time needed so they sat in the cooler for about four hours. When I pulled them they totally fell apart. The texture was like mush. They were hot enough going into the cooler and there was enough mass that they continued to cook and render collagen until it was all liquid. This is not a good thing. Let each one cool to at least 170 internal before wrapping and holding.
 
Yes, excellent point Jay! Let them begin to drop some! The thermal mass in five butts is huge, get them off at a point to allow yourself some party enjoyment. This stuff is supposed to be fun, let it be fun!
 
I appreciate all of the input. Curious about the comment on no water. Is there a reason I wouldn't use water in the pan? I'm assuming it's harder to get
to temp with water.

5 butts is a lot of cold mass, that equals a heat sink, but doable at HH like Lew suggested.
Obviously no water. Minion start and leave all vents wide open. It should take like an hour or two to climb up to 275+, then just let it ride till you like the color.
I get better color on my top rack so you might want to rotate top to bottom.
I never tried BP, but always foil on HH when the color looks good and I see some bone.
Normally that takes 8-9 hrs for the same sized butt.
The last time I did 6- 10lb'rs I started at 4.30 am and they finished round 2pm.
HTH and good luck!

Tim
 
I appreciate all of the input. Curious about the comment on no water. Is there a reason I wouldn't use water in the pan? I'm assuming it's harder to get
to temp with water.

Your assumption is correct, the water provides a heat sink (mass to slow the heat inside) which given the number of butts, is (in many folks opinion, mine included) unnecessary. I never use water but, that’s another story.
 
I appreciate all of the input. Curious about the comment on no water. Is there a reason I wouldn't use water in the pan? I'm assuming it's harder to get
to temp with water.

You mentioned in post #3 that you would try to shoot for higher heat, that usually equals not using a heat sink like water.

Tim
 

 

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