1st overnight 4 butts


 
K

KR Manley

New member
So next Friday I will be doing 4 butts for some of my Vietnam buddies flying in for a reunion. We have a banquet that night and bbq at my place the next afternoon. I'm gonna have to leave the banquet early and plan on getting the meat on around 3 to serve around 4 the next afternoon. Is that enough time, or should I just go ahead and start when I get home and cook til done. Just not sure how long 4 butts will take. BTW I've got a 22" WSM. This will be my 4th cook on it.

Love this site, everyone is so helpful.
 
KR, weird seeing me on your post. Figure 1-1 1/2 hrs per lb for the largest butt. ie. 10 lb butt = 10-15 hrs cook. @ 225-250temp. Additional butts should not matter unless it's really crowded in your smoker. Add 1-2 hrs rest time before service.

Mark
 
That should be enough time but, as Larry asked, much depends on the temperature. Are you using water in the pan?
 
Well, been dealing with out of round issue but think I've got if fixed..... All of my cooks have been running around 260-270 but with some foil, I'm doing a test burn as we speak and it's holding around 225. (fingers crossed) I'd like to do around 250, in other cookers I've gottena better bark around that temp. I believe the butts will be averaging around 8-9 pounds. The largest butt idea makes sense.
I kinda like the impact of pulling the meat off in front of the guests if you know what I mean. I'll probably be posting while I'm cooking and will send you guys some pictures. I imagine some of my buds will come over to sit with me.
Who would have thought 40 years ago we were sitting in a bunker together and now, we're drinking beer and cooking and talking about those who aren't with us....

Thanks guys.

God is great, beer is good, people are crazy.
 
I've never had a butt go faster than 2 hrs per lb and have had them go as long as 3 hrs per lb.

I'd recommend 250º~275º.

It's best to start early and then just hold them until you want to pull. A butt taken off at 195º~200º will easily hold for 4 hours wrapped in foil, wrapped in towels, inside a cooler and still be hot.
 
I always cook them at 250-275 for about 1 hour/lb. Final tests are temp and check for fork tender (I check with temp probe).

edit: usually 250, but not overly concerned if it creeps up. Don't want 275 for entire cook.
 
About one fifteen pound bag of Stubbs natural briquettes, found at Lowes home improvement stores. You won't have near as much ash as with Kingsford, so no need to worry about the fire smothering itself in the early morning. If you do use K, I'd recommend tapping the legs pretty good to knock off the ash before you finally hit the sack.

If you get rid of the oversized pan and find a Brinkman charcoal pan (found at Academy Sports, cheap) you can use a whole bag of Stubbs and shouldn't need to refuel. It should have plenty of water capacity to get through the rest of the cook if you top it off before you hit the sack. I bury three chunks of wood and put two on top, using two hickory and three fruitwood of some sort.
 
Ok, so I bought 4 butts about 7.5 lbs each. Put them on last night at 11:15. (want to serve at 3:00-4:00PM....
Have a serious out of round and had to plug all kinds of leaks with foil... Got the heat to stabilize around 225.... crashed for a couple hours... At 3:00 got up and everything looked good. Had a nice cool night. Oh, did I mention it was raining when I started out had to put the awning up. Took a while to get temp stabilized.. but again, 3 am all is well, back to bed.
Smoker alarm woke me up at 260 degrees. Went back out and shut the dampers a notch.. Back to about 240.

At 5:00 AM turned and rotated all 4 butts... Looking good, nice bark, smells great. Neighbor watching....

9:00 meat probe shows 185, instant read shows 170. Took meat probe out... Meat looks great, starting to settle tender, pulled back from bone, bone still a little stiff.

Way ahead of schedule, now what do I do???
 
A little late to the party but I think you were saying at 9:00 a.m. Central time you were sitting at 170 for a 3:00 - 4:00 p.m. serving. It's now 4:10 Central so if I had to guess you're probably just serving. If I had to guess at 9:00 a.m. you still had about 6 hours of cooking time left, am I close?

Hope everything turned out!
 
Excellent!! Meant to take pictures but with so many people around forgot about it. Took them off about 3:00, foiled them and put in cooler. We ate at 5. So tender, the bones pulled right out. All in all, an excellent cook.
 
Right on the money! It came out well, thanks for asking. Pork was tender, nice bark, great flavor. Added some Carolina vinegar sauce and everybody pigged out!
 
Great to here it worked out for you!! After reading this earlier, I had to get back on to find out how they turned out, but MOSTLY TO THANK YOU AND YOUR BROTHERS FOR ALL THAT YOU HAVE DONE TO MAKE OUR COUNTRY THE GREAT NATION IT IS TODAY. I know I speak for all on this site when I say that your acts of selflessness and courage will never be forgotten! Thank you Sirs, for ALL you have done.
 
Tim, thank you for your kind words. It was really a great few days. Great to see the guys and tell lies about each other, drink some Jack and smoke a few cigars and eat some good Q. Couldn't have asked for better meat, came out perfect.

You know, we had a special guest for our BBQ and he asked us if we would do it again (Vietnam) knowing what we know now and how it would turn out. To a man, we all said yes. When he asked why, I just told him, if we hadn't done that, then there wouldn't be 17 very good friends sitting around in my front yard right now.....

I am honored to have served with these guys and honored to have them as my friends.

We have a book coming out in September called the "Sentinel and the Shooter". Look for it, it's a pretty good history of a Signals Intelligence Company in Vietnam....

Thanks again
 
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