8 Boston Butts in a 22.5" WSM!


 
T

TonyD

TVWBB Fan
Making pulled pork for a local Oktoberfest this weekend. We're expecting to serve 200, so we've purchased and prepped 10 butts.

At 5:30am this morning, I squeezed 8 of them into my 22.5" WSM. It was tight, but I did my best to ensure air flow in and around each butt.

At last check (11am) we we're cruising right along at just about 250 degrees.

Wish me luck! Ill post some photos when I can...
 
I have cooked 92 pounds of pork butt (roughly 16 smallish butts) on an old style 18" wsm. I don't concern myself with bark formation when I'm catering or doing a very large amount of pulled pork because I haven't found that it makes much difference in the finished product in that quantity.

All I did is remove the top rack and stack the butts on the bottom. I then set up the fire for a high heat cook (325-350), loaded with hickory, and left it alone for about 4 hours until it had picked up the amount of smoke flavor I wanted. I then pulled them all off, wrapped them in foil and restacked them, making sure to put the ones that were more done into the cooler part of the cooker. I intermittently checked them for about the next 6 hours until they were all ready to pull. Done deal.
 
Just did 8 butts last weekend and am gearing up for another 8 tomorrow for a BBQ planned next weekend.

Easy-peasy. Did mine low n slow, no water and aside from taking a LONG time for the 22.5 to come up to temp (about 2 hours after adding 80+ lbs) it was a cinch. Took 15 hours start to finish on the 22.5 at ~225. Pulled just shy of poke-tender and wrapped/coolered for 4 more hours. Bones almost dropped out after resting.

Find myself agreeing with A.D.Letson about bark for high-volume smokes. For personal smokes, i trim fat-cap and rub HEAVILY with a modified "Butt rub for Jane" and sit it overnight in fridge. For voulme cooks, I now tend to leave the cap on and do a VERY LIGHT dusting of rub on all sides except the fat-cap right before tossing onto the smoker.

Bark is nice fresh, but as I smoke, vacu-suck and freeze for my events, bark gets soft and blends in too much with the rest of the meat.

Only other thing i can suggest is saving as much of the juice as you can after resting. De-fatted juice added back into the meat after pulling keeps moist/adds flavor.

Rich
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by TonyD:
Anyone ever cook this many (or more) in a WSM before? Any feeback? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Do up to 12 lots, only difference is the come up to cook temp. Pulling can be a job though. I usually "throw" (seriously) in a cooler and carry to the serving location and rip them apart on a table and put in another cooler that has been pre-heated with hot water and serve from it.
 
All went well. The first 8 butts I spoke about earlier took a full 15-16 hours to complete, but came out great. While at the Oktoberfest I fired up the WSM and cooked two more to generate some smoke and aroma (our sales technique).

Sales were OK. I can say that we did better than break even (but not by much). But we did gain lots of experience with this type of thing. Of those who did purchase from us, many came back for more or at least gave us some good feedback on the quality of the pork.

We also sold drinks and the wives made chocolate chip cookies as well. Thank god for both of these items as they had the greatest profit margin for us!! We sold the sandwiches for $5.00 each which was $0.50 lower than our competition a few booths away. Maybe $6 was the way to go? Who knows....a few photos below...

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I cooked pork for our hometown festival in early September. Started with 92 pounds of butts (10 butts, cooked on 2 18.5" WSMs). It was a tight fit, but I made it happen. The butts took between 14 and 17 hours to finish, used no foil during the cook.
We ended up with 50 pounds of finished product.
The 50 pounds resulted in 223 sandwiches which sold for $3.00 each or 2 for $5.00. The festival reimbursed me for my expenses (pork, rub ingredients, 40 lbs of charcoal) but even if you figure all of the sammies sold at the 2 for $5.00 rate, the festival would have profited about $350.00 total. Of course, my time invested in the cooking, pulling, and packaging was donated, as was the use of my WSMs so that should be taken into account I suppose.
 
Yes. We planned for 200 but only sold about 70. We had less leftover than it sounds as we started making the sandwiches bigger as the day was coming to an end.

Every event is different I'm sure. This was an Oktoberfest in New England with many other food booths to choose from. I'm thinking that some New Englanders may not be huge fans of pulled pork. Also, we felt the location of our booth was not ideal. The prime spots were next to the beer garden (no suprise!)

We may try again next year (with a few modifications)....
 
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