Advice - WSM 22.5 - Pork Butts and Baby Back Ribs?


 
R

Rick Hadsall

New member
Hi,

Has anyone any advice for me -- I'm hosting a party this coming weekend, and I'd like to offer pulled pork and baby back ribs to my guests.

This site is a treasure of information and recipes! I do have two questions however:

1 - are two pork butts (16lb pre-trimmed?) adequate for about 30 people? How do I size ribs? 3 racks? 6 racks? The rib rack holds 6, I believe.

2 - If I mean to serve them together, what advice/rules/timings should I follow for cooking both together? The pork butts will take 12-16 hours alone; does that change when the ribs are added? If so, I merely need to add the ribs later, correct? Because they only take about 4 hours?

Thank you - apologies for the stupid newbie questions.
 
Treat them as two individual cooks even though they will be in the same cooker.

I'm going to assume that you're talking about 2 eight pound butts for a total of 16 pounds. 16 pounds for 30 people is going to give you a LOT of leftovers. But that might be ok if people want to take home leftovers.

For serving, time it so that the pork finishes out about an hour or two before you mean to serve (just in case it runs long). Wrap it up real good and put it in a cooler. Then, about 10-15 minutes before serving you can get it out and pull it.

Ribs are just about pure clockwork. Six hours. Back it up from the serving time. Slice and serve.

Russ
 
Thanks Russ!

So maybe I'm being silly since we're going to have sausages and burgers for those who don't eat pork (I do not know who those people are LOL)

Maybe I should stick with one eight pound butt.

Six hours for ribs regardless of how many, right?

I gather from your response that pretty much, the cooking of each individual item isn't really affected by other items within the cooker; as long as the cooker is the correct temperature and the individual item is cooked to its own timing it should work?
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">

I'm going to assume that you're talking about 2 eight pound butts for a total of 16 pounds. 16 pounds for 30 people is going to give you a LOT of leftovers. But that might be ok if people want to take home leftovers.

Russ </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I disagree. You won't actually get 16 lbs of meat from 16 lbs of butt. I assume 2/3 of the weight you actually net.

That gives you 10LB of meat.
10/30 = 1/3rd LB of meat per person. Seems like a pretty decent portion size per person to aim for.

Also, since you are firing your cooker anyway, might as well do em both and freeze any that remains
 
I'm planning basically the same cook for Saturday, but w/ the 18.5 WSM. I plan on cooking both butts on top and then starting the ribs on the middle rack.

Should I have any concerns w/ the butt drippings hitting the ribs? Can only help right?
 
Hi lads,

I had a single pork butt (all the butcher had left) on starting at 10:30pm. Unfortunately my fire went out at 3am but fortunately (??? hehe) I was up so I was able to restart it. By 7:30am my cooking alarm was going off -- temperature had reached 196F in the pork... The weight was odd - the main piece was 6lbs and there was a 1.5 lb piece separated that I tied back on (the way the butcher cut it). I thought it'd take at least 10 hours but it was done in 9 (which works with the 6 lb size). In any event, I took it off and put it in foil in a cooler for a few hours.

Has anyone else had that sort of result? Before I took it off I checked with the probe in another spot to ensure it was really that warm and it was.

Ribs are on now. Smells great in my yard. Neighbor said he was considering stealing it
icon_smile.gif
 
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