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5th cook (second overnight butt)


 
BrianBishop

BrianBishop

TVWBB Member
Well I'm 15 minutes into my second overnight butt cook... Hopefully this one turns out as tasty as the first! I've learned a lot in the last three cooks (mainly from doing my homework here) so I'm hoping this one goes even better.

The first attempt was before I found this wonderful place so I did a few things differently. The main thing being that I tried using the snake method in my 22.5" WSM. This made it kind of a long night carefully watching the coals and trying to resupply as the snake made its way around the ring. I also had water in the pan on that cook so the temp maintained 225-250 without issue. One issue I did run into with that cook was an overabundance of ash. I think this may have been a result of me using several old, partially used bags of charcoal, adding to that kingsford is heavy on ash anyway.

This cook features two 6.5# (pre trimmed) bone in pork butts. I rubbed them with "memphis dust" and allowed to marinate for about 10 hours then sprinkled again just before going on the smoker. My fire consists of the Minion Method using a full ring of K's, 3 oak chunks buried in unlit and 3 hickory chunks on top of unlit, and 20 briquettes lit in the chimney. No water in the pan this time, just foiled on the inside.

Once I added the lit coals, the cooker came up to temp very quickly tonight. From lighting the chimney to 250 was only 30 minutes. Once I added the meat the temp came way down, but with a couple adjustments, 45 minutes in now it seems to be settling in at 240...

Here's a few pics of the happenings thus far. I forgot to take any pics of the meat up to this point, so this is just prepping the fire...

Damn that kingsford pull tab!


Oak in the middle


Hickory on top


20 briquettes firing up quick. Notice I use my SJS/Mini wsm base to lite my chimney...


Mr. Raccoon scurrying up the neighbors tree when I went to make a vent adjustment
 
Carl_S_901 said:
Without water in the pan won't the temp be fairly high? Are you going to leave it unattended overnight?
Click to expand...

Two hours in and its sitting nicely at 235. I plan to sleep for a few hours at least. My Maverick ET-732 will be keeping an eye on things for me. My girlfriend calls it my "baby monitor" LoL :D Low temp alarm is set at 220 and high is set at 280 so it will wake me up if I have any big temp swings to attend to...
 
5:00 a.m. and I was ripped from a deep sleep by the bbq low temp alarm. As I mentioned above it was set at 220, mainly because I didn't want it too get too far down in case I needed to add coals... I checked the fuel supply and there's plenty left so I made a slight damper adjustment. Its back at 228 now. I'll keep an eye on it a few more minutes to make sure its holding then get some more sleep. I was able to leave it for 2-1/2 hours, if I can get another 2.5 I'll be gtg...
 
Its' now 9 a.m. and the cooker has been chugging along for the past 4 hours between 225-250 without me having to touch it. I just took a peak inside and the're looking phenomenal internal is up to 187 so they should be done fairly soon.

To say I love this thing would be an understatement! I'm hooked bad! :wsm: LoL
 
Both butts were taken off the cooker and wrapped in foil by 11:15 so just shy of 12 hours for the bigger of the two and closer to 11 for the smaller. They're both wrapped in foil and resting comfortably in the cooler. I've been working solo today so its hard to get pics in progress, but I'll be sure to snap a few before I pull them. They both looked and smelled fantastic and were extremely probe tender. I have high hopes for these beauties.
 
I suppose I should complete this post with the results...

This cook traveled with us to a graduation party for my girlfriends sister so I waited to pull until we were at our destination. As I stated in the previous post, both butts were completed by 11:30 but we weren't going to the party till 5 so I had to hold them for a considerable amount of time. I wrapped them tightly in foil and inserted the probe for my maverick into the smaller of the two. I used a thick foam cooler, that was previously the shipping container for Omaha Steaks, to hold the shoulders. I placed one folded bath towel on the bottom, placed the wrapped meat on there and another folded towel on top of the meat.

Using the guide here I read the meat needs to stay over 140 degrees to stay safe so I kept a close eye on the maverick... The cooler held the meat's temp great and it never dipped below 150 even after sitting for nearly 5 hours.

Here is the only cooked pic I was able to snap as I had pulling to do


You may notice, the meat was so tender that one of the roasts split in half at the bone when I was moving them both into the same pan to snap the pic. As expected, the bones pulled out with the utmost of easy and the pork shredded very nicely. Everyone raved about the flavor and many skipped the fried chicken in favor of a double helping of pork. To say the least, it was a big hit!!

I wish I would have taken more pics during this cook but I did manage to keep a good written log of the cook to aid in future cooks. Most importantly the finished product was great so the cook was a success in my book. Thanks for reading along and for the words of encouragement. With all the great information all you guys provide here and the success of my last few cooks I feel I'm starting to get that hang of this... I'm feeling some homemade bacon in my future :wsm:
 
Glad to hear it worked out...
Hopefully you do the bacon. That's something I been wanting to do for a while.
 
Brian,

Great Job !!! Fun, isn't it, when you have a successful cook followed by an even more successful eating enjoyment of the results !!! :wsm:

Bob
 
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