6 butt cook
- Thread starter John Thom
- Start date
JOhn, have done six before. Allow a long time for your WSM to come up to temp. That's a lot of cold meat on the smoker. I always use two temp probes . One is stuck on the biggest butt on the bottom and the other to the biggest on top. I don't use water in the pan. I use a foiled water pan. It will be a tight squeeze with the meat(assuming you have a 18" WSM) but don't worry about it ,they will all shrink and fit in nicely. I allow the temp at the beginning to get to around 220-240 before I put the meat on. The temp will drop when the meat goes on anyway. Toward the end I've found that some butts are done earlier then the others. Just take them off ,foil,wrap and put in cooler. It's not that difficult a cook. Have fun 
Barry McCorkle
TVWBB Super Fan
To calculate your cooking time, I use 1.5 to 2 hours per lb of the typical size of one of the butts, if cooking in the 225 - 250 range. For instance, last year I did a cook of 6 butts that were about 7 - 8 lbs each, so cooking time was estimated at 14 hours. They were actually finished in less than 12 hours.
My tips:
1. Allow enough time to pull and shred the pork as it takes longer than you think. I think it took a 1 - 2 hours to pull 6 butts and chop it.
2. Paul was correct in that it will take more fuel to cook the 6 butts. So have a 20 lbs. bag ready.
3. Get creative with arranging the butts in the 18.5". You may need to stand them on end to get all 6 of them to fit.
4. Get 2 large disposable pans for the meat. I think I ended up with a little over 24 lbs of meat, which completely filled two large pans.
5. Let the WSM do the work. It was no more problem controlling heat with 6 butts as it is 1 butt. Typically when cooking 1 butt I rarely open the vents more than a 1/4 open. For 6 butts, vents were left 1/2 open or more for the entire session but temp was steady for hours on end.
My tips:
1. Allow enough time to pull and shred the pork as it takes longer than you think. I think it took a 1 - 2 hours to pull 6 butts and chop it.
2. Paul was correct in that it will take more fuel to cook the 6 butts. So have a 20 lbs. bag ready.
3. Get creative with arranging the butts in the 18.5". You may need to stand them on end to get all 6 of them to fit.
4. Get 2 large disposable pans for the meat. I think I ended up with a little over 24 lbs of meat, which completely filled two large pans.
5. Let the WSM do the work. It was no more problem controlling heat with 6 butts as it is 1 butt. Typically when cooking 1 butt I rarely open the vents more than a 1/4 open. For 6 butts, vents were left 1/2 open or more for the entire session but temp was steady for hours on end.