A little...(lot) intimidated!!


 
T

Tim (the grillaholic)

TVWBB Super Fan
Would like to smoke a boston butt and a few racks of ribs this weekend, but I am unsure of how long the BB will take. Ihave read where some have taken more than 12hours. (albeit that was for several butts at the same time) What is a good time line for smoking BB and will the ribstake longer since they will be smoking along with the BB? thanks for any info!!
 
A pork shoulder can take anywhere from probably 6 hours to 18 depending on the temperature of the smoker, size of the shoulder, and the make up of the particular piece of the meat. It is done when it is done. You cannot time it to the minute.

Will the ribs take longer because a butt in on also? Maybe, but the difference in time will likely be small unless you really load your smoker up with meat.
 
I like Kevin's suggestion to time the butt to be done about halfway through the rib cook time. You can hold a butt at temp for quite a while or reheat the pulled pork.

Ribs and Butt
 
Just smoked a bone out butt weight 5.5lb @ 230-250f and it took 11hours

But it really depends on so many things that i cant tell you how long its gonna take.

I pulled mine at an inner temp of 190f but i read alot of ppl think 180-185 is the way to do it.

Still i got some nice chunks mixed with shreded.

But i guess it depends alot on how the butt looks and is built upp,and this was a "neck" pice of the pig.

Good luck
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">but i read alot of ppl think 180-185 is the way to do it. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Not for pulled pork.
 
Cook the pork until it reaches an internal temperature of 180 degrees. Then it is time to pull it off the fire. source- http://www.jsonline.com/features/food/100297994.html

And then read this in the competiton section:

Just my opinion but 195-198 is waaayyy overcooked. I pull them out at no more than 185. I prefer 182-183 as the exact temperature.

I also have adjusted the times that I put the butts in so that they finish up about 30-45 minutes before processing. The 30-45 mins gives it a chance to rest. I don't wrap them up during this time.

I've gotten some beautiful money muscle slices to put on top of the pulled.


Or maby the above poster just refered to the sliced "money muscle"

A well doesent matter.
 
I'm with Kevin, 180-185 is undercooked for pulled, but it's about perfect for sliced. The biggest thing you're looking for is tenderness, not temperature. Temp informs tenderness, though. Once you get to 185, you can start probing the roast. Once your probe slides in like it's going into butter, it's done.

You can estimate 1.5 per pound, but it may very well take longer than that. The great thing about a butt is that you can hold it in a cooler for a few hours. If you factor that into your cook time, it should give you the flexibility you need to get done when you need to.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Then it is time to pull it off the fire. source- http://www.jsonline.com/features/food/100297994.html </div></BLOCKQUOTE>Sorry, but that's not a credible source. It is written by someone so obviously new to both barbecue and cooking that, well, it was hard to read.

If the author wants to call 180 'done', so be it, but in years of cooking many hundreds of butts I can't say that I've ever had one tender enough to shred easily, when cooked at typical low/slow temps, at that internal. In fact, at ~180 low/slow butts often go into a second plateau and stall. Though it is possible, if held in the cooker for long enough, at that internal, that the meat would eventually get tender enough to be easily pullable, this is not 'done at 180' but, rather, many hours after, irrespective of temp.

And brining butts destined for pulling? Why on earth bother? They ain't loins.
 
OMG ROFLMAO

A guy from Sweden, referencing our local newspaper (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)?? This stuff is priceless! This paper is great for bird-cage liner or for puppy-training, but that's about it. (No offense intended, Wolgast - I just found the situation comical, and fully agree with Kevin's assessment of the article and the validity of it as a source.)

From the good people here, I've learned that temperature is a good guide to get you "in the ballpark". When the meat hits the target temperature (it will probably "hover" in the plateau of around 170-F for a long time, which will seem REALLY L...O...N...G... until you get used to it). Then, you should start checking it for tenderness (and by "check it", I mean maybe once an hour - NOT once every 15 minutes. Nothing significant is likely to happen in 15 minutes - Patience, Grasshopper
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poke it with a probe - if it goes in like butter, it's done!

try wiggling the bone with a pair of tongs. If it's loose, it's done!
 
Well i never said to pull under 190f i said that i have read that from other posters/sources.(listed above)

I PERSONALY think 190 is great if you want a mix of shred/sliced.
 
Thanks to All who have posted !! What I gather, is that if I want to eat around 6ish, I should have the smoker up to tempv by (at the latest) 6 in the morning. I like the idea of telling when its done by the tenderness of the meat, and I will start to 'check it when it reaches about 185/190 degrees.
Ron, wow, Wauwatosa huh? THat name floods the brain with memories! Before I moved down here in '82, I lived in Oconomowoc and we had a cottage on a small lake in Wauwatosa. I can still remember eating supper in a hurry so we could "go looking for deer" every evening. Man, talk about a trip dowm memory lane!! double thanks for that!!
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">is that if I want to eat around 6ish, I should have the smoker up to tempv by (at the latest) 6 in the morning. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Make sure to give yourself 3-4 hours of cushion! The butts will hold fine!

Good luck
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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Tim (the grillaholic):
... we had a cottage on a small lake in Wauwatosa. I can still remember eating supper in a hurry so we could "go looking for deer" every evening... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Tim - not trying to be a jerk, but I think that maybe your "memory lane" is getting a little rusty. Wauwatosa is a Near-West suburb of Milwaukee. (Maybe your cottage was in Wautoma, or something that sounds similar?) Although we DO get deer roaming through the neighborhood occasionally, with the parkway running through nearby.

I think that you will be on the right track leaving them on a little longer. One of the best chunks-o-shoulder that I've done so far was one where I was worried that I'd left it on too long. I just about fell apart when I pulled it, but was still juicy and delicious.
 
Ron, no thoughts like that at all! Would that put you between Oconomowoc and Milwaukee, or are you farther west? I chickened out this weekend, and 'settled' for 3 racks of ribs using The Best Ribs in The Universe recipe. WOW, awsome!! Hope to smoke some butts this weekend, Haave some friends coming over. Thanks again for all the advice.
 
This is an INTERESTING thread! Tim, if you are in a hurry, you can push both butts and ribs by employing foil during the cooking cycle. Typically I find that a 10 lb butt will take around 13 hours at 225 degree w/o foiling. I like to make pulled pork, so I personally look to have an internal temp of 195. There are several muscle groups in the butt, all of which probe differently. The money muscle is on the outside of the butt and is super tender. The center muscle behind the blade bone is much tougher and will lag behind several degrees when probed. I usually target this muscle to determine my finished and off the grill temp.
I got in time management trouble with a charity cook recently, and had to speed things up to feed the public. I ramped up the cooker to 265, then foiled the butts to push them thru the 170 degree plateau stage. After unfoiling and hardening off the bark, they were perfectly done. I shaved several hours by this method.
Ribs are the same way. Lots of comp teams use foil. 3-1-1 is common for spares at 225, while 2-1-1 at 225 is common for BB's.
 
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