Boston Butts take too long


 
R

Richard.Koonce

New member
I have smoked 4 Boston Butts and they all have taken well over 2 hours per pound. My last Boston Butt took over 3 hrs/lb and my two previous took 2.6 hrs/lb. The last Boston Butt weight was about 5.6 lb and took 18 hours to reach 197 degrees when pulled.
Why? What is it that I am doing wrong, or what is amiss with the process or setup?
I understand that wrapping the meat and increasing temperature will reduce cook times; what I am trying to determine is why with normal procedures my cook times exceed the norm.

For the last cook, that took 18 hours, here is what I had and what I did.
Equipment includes an 18-inch WSM, Thermoworks Signals with meat probe and ambient air probe, and Billows ATC. Billows ATC was added on last cook.
Boston Butt was a bone-in Smithfield brand, major pork distributor out of North Carolina. After trimming and prior to brine and rub the BB weighed 5.62 lb. Brine for 12 hours day before cook, in 4 oz salt, 8 oz molasses, and 2 qt water. About 5 oz of Adams Rib Rub added night before cook.

Pit temperatures for first 12.5 hours were at 225 degrees, next 2.5 hours at 230 degrees and last hour at 250 degrees. The ATC keep pit temps steady. See graph.
I started with a full ring (over flowing) of Royal Oak All Natural charcoal briquettes and about 2 pounds of smoking wood chunks. Used the Harry Soo doughnut method with a well in center, then added about 20 briquettes completely ashed over. Bowl filled with two gallons of warm water.
Outside temperatures started in the high-40's and climbed to high-50's during the day.
Meat was placed on smoker when the pit temperature was above 200 degrees.
Meat probe was in meaty part of butt away from the bone. The pit probe is an inch and half from the meat and about 4 inches from the edge of the cooking grate. See picture.
Additional charcoal added at 7.5 hours in, about three-quarters of a Weber chimney each unlit and ashed over briquettes.
I do not wrap my meat. There was no peeking during the cook, lid was never raised until the end.
I have tested my probes against a Thermoworks Thermapen MK4 and they are accurate. Verified all probes and Thermapen in an ice bath.

first 13 hours.jpgAir Probe Position.jpg
 
Richard, the tough part of low and slow is how slow it can be at times. You’re doing the right stuff from your description. From my experience you might want to try two things. First while outside temperatures are cool you might not want to run water in the water pan. Second bump up the heat a bit. 250-275 will get that pork butt finished faster for you.
 
Barbecue is done when it’s done, sometimes there is no rhyme or reason to what may make one piece take longer or more quickly. The only thing I might try is skip the water.
After reading many threads here I felt that the water was superfluous so, I have never done anything but for the Terra Cotta planter saucer foiling both the bowl and saucer. I’ve had butts go 2+ hours per pound more than once it’s just one thing that we must seem to endure. I have also had them be done in more like an hour a pound, same products no explanation from me just consolation.
As Doc Watson used to sing “Life git’s tejus, don’t it?”
 
I always have water in the smoker , no matter its my WSM or my stick burner.

I think you can raise your temp up to 275*. Pork butt has enough fat to easily handle higher temps.
 
Also, you might try wrapping when the butt is coming out of the stall. Wrapping in foil will shorten the cook time. And its not illegal nor is it cheating ........ to bring the butt into the kitchen and finish in the oven. Once its wrapped, its not gonna take on any more smoke.

BTW, how did you make that chart that has temp in 15* increments ? What I'm using is in 50* increments.
 
Lynn Dollar said:
Also, you might try wrapping when the butt is coming out of the stall. Wrapping in foil will shorten the cook time. And its not illegal nor is it cheating ........ to bring the butt into the kitchen and finish in the oven. Once its wrapped, its not gonna take on any more smoke.

BTW, how did you make that chart that has temp in 15* increments ? What I'm using is in 50* increments.
Click to expand...
Thermoworks Signals and Excel. My Thermoworks Signals connects to the Thermoworks Cloud, transferring all the data from the temperature probes to the cloud (website), then I can download the data to MS Excel. From there it is easy to produce the graph with the gridlines at the desired increments and show the data that is important for the point. My graph only shows 13.5 hours of cook plus 15 minutes of warm up, it does not show the last 4.5 hours. Thermoworks Rules!
 
Richard -- your method is fine. But you are literally doing it the slooooowest way possible.

Any/all of the following will speed your cook: 275F to start, no water, wrap, finish (in the oven or the smoker) at 300F+, butterfly the butt.

I'd recommend you start with the butterfly and then experiment from there. Because the butterfly gives you more seasoning and more bark (in addition to a faster cook time). Butterfly is super easy to do if are starting with a boneless butt (which is what my Costco usually sells).

I myself do most/all these things, depending on when I'm trying to land the dinner plane. Pork butt is pretty forgiving, so baby-ing it for 18 hours is not something I feel the need to do. If the bark is set and the meat has had 8 hours or more in the smoke, everything after that is just BTUs to raise the internal temp into the 200-205 melt/tender zone. Any heat source will do. Maybe even a microwave (though I've never tried that).

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Pork Butt Split In Half - The Virtual Weber Bullet

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You could also go High Heat like a brisket. I don't remember the last time I did a butt 225, but a member alot smarter then me said " the only magic of cooking at 225 is it takes longer" I like 275 and closer to 300.
You can get a butt done in 5 hrs or let it come up slower and get in the 8 hr range.
 
The pit temp the last few hours was a bit close to the finishing temp. Foiling or raising temp a bit would shorten that right up. Try 250 or 275. I use much more.
 
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Richard -- FWIW, I have a WSM 18 and also use a Billows.

I vary my temp and method depending on when I want to start cooking and when I need to be done. The quality of the end product doesn't really seem to vary that much based on the length of the cook time. All the methods seem to work well.

If for example I feel like doing an overnight cook, I might set the Billows at 225-ish for the overnight portion to make sure (i) I get a lot of good smoke time, (ii) the charcoal will easily last overnight, and (iii) to keep the meat from being done at breakfast time.

Then what I do the next day (wrap or not, higher temp or not, oven finish or not) depends almost entirely on how early I want to be done with the cook and the smoker. Usually I bump the Billows up to 275 in the morning. And then (depending on progress) maybe bump again to 300 or more or use the oven.

And since you can hold the meat for up to 5-6 hours with cooler/towels, you have a pretty big window to have the meat done in plenty of time for lunch or dinner.
 
Lynn Dollar said:
I always have water in the smoker , no matter its my WSM or my stick burner.

I think you can raise your temp up to 275*. Pork butt has enough fat to easily handle higher temps.
Click to expand...

This.

There is really no reason to have your pit at 225. Just start out at 265-275 (best for me) and go from there. Also, the night before I am going to smoke the Butt I remove it from the refrigerator right before I go to bed. When I wake up and put it on the smoker I will have an internal temperature of 60-62 degrees versus 38-40 if I pull it right from the frige. This little move takes off 2 full hours on the pit to get my desired internal temp of 208.

As others have stated, I think you're taking the Low & Slow a bit too far.

GIT
 
GregInTexas said:
This.

There is really no reason to have your pit at 225. Just start out at 265-275 (best for me) and go from there. Also, the night before I am going to smoke the Butt I remove it from the refrigerator right before I go to bed. When I wake up and put it on the smoker I will have an internal temperature of 60-62 degrees versus 38-40 if I pull it right from the frige. This little move takes off 2 full hours on the pit to get my desired internal temp of 208.

As others have stated, I think you're taking the Low & Slow a bit too far.

GIT
Click to expand...
The night before. More power to you. USDA and FDA recommends food left out for 2 hours or more be discarded.
I remove the pork from the frig the morning of the cook and while getting the WSM ready (charcoal and water) and me ready (coffee and gloves), the pork raises in temp from high 30's to 50. It takes me almost 2 hours to get me and the WSM going in the morning; I am the slow one of the two. The WSM takes the pork from 50 to 60 in 30 minutes and from 50 to 80 in an hour (30 degree change like refrigerator to room temp); no question there is time saved from starting at 60 degrees rather than from 35 degrees. All mine have started on the smoker at about 50 degrees, so the savings is 30 minutes for the WSM to get it from 50 degrees to room temperature; there might be a little more time saved in the cook due to areas around the bone are a little slower to rise.
 
More power to you. USDA and FDA recommends food left out for 2 hours or more be discarded.

Just learned this on here recently.

Cooking BBQ (i.e. many many hours of heat going all the way up to 200F internal) will kill all the bacteria. But...some toxins produced by the bacteria are heat resistant.

So cooking food left for more than two hours at room temp is not always going to be safe.
 
Jim C in Denver said:
Richard -- FWIW, I have a WSM 18 and also use a Billows.

I vary my temp and method depending on when I want to start cooking and when I need to be done. The quality of the end product doesn't really seem to vary that much based on the length of the cook time. All the methods seem to work well.

If for example I feel like doing an overnight cook, I might set the Billows at 225-ish for the overnight portion to make sure (i) I get a lot of good smoke time, (ii) the charcoal will easily last overnight, and (iii) to keep the meat from being done at breakfast time.

Then what I do the next day (wrap or not, higher temp or not, oven finish or not) depends almost entirely on how early I want to be done with the cook and the smoker. Usually I bump the Billows up to 275 in the morning. And then (depending on progress) maybe bump again to 300 or more or use the oven.

And since you can hold the meat for up to 5-6 hours with cooler/towels, you have a pretty big window to have the meat done in plenty of time for lunch or dinner.
Click to expand...
Jim would love input your on the Billows. Do you use a damper? How do you attach the Billows to WSM, right to the vent or through an attachment like the "dog bowl"? Do you get much in the way of ash on the food?
Inquiring minds want to know. I just got the billows so I could do cooks while I slept. First try was not successful but that was because of bad charcoal.
Any input on how to limit ash on food when using Billows is welcomed.
 
Barbecue, IS NOT fast, hot or terribly predictable, it is the nature of the beast! Learning to understand that is the biggest component in making good barbecue.
Where “New members” can learn most, is reading a ton of posts by absolutely everyone. This forum is an encyclopedia of how to do darned near everything with a kettle or smoker.
If you need something instantly, go buy someone else’s, you want your own? Simply relax and wait for excellence to appear. It takes a lot of time.
Generally,
Rub, night before, have breakfast (or after dinner) get things started, fire wise, light the smoker, have a nightcap or breakfast, ensconce the protein then either go to bed or spend the day making sides, cleaning the garage or checking various adult frosty beverages for quality. When protein “feels right” wrap, towel, place in cooler and set up the feasting tables.
It’s about not rushing, it’s about waiting and lowering your blood pressure!
 
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You can't rush it. This past weekend I cooked two 5lb butts on my 14.5. One was for later and the other was for dinner that day. I had both of them on at 8 AM. It was cooking at about 245F.

Things were going fine until my charcoal was burning out by 1:00 and I had to add more. The temp dropped down to 205. It was a windy day and I suspect that messed it up. The internal temp of the butts stalled at 146 and didn't get to 152 until about 3:00. I was in a hurry and just wrapped it in foil. Normally I would wrap at 160 but I needed it for that evening.

After wrapping the WSM temperature was about 270F and it got to 205F by about 5:00. I let them rest in a towel for an hour. When I pulled them they were much tougher than normal.

In my case I needed one right away so when it wasn't going as planned I panicked and wrapped early and the wind was messing it up. I measure the WSM temp through the grommet. I'm now going to measure at grate level in the future.
 
There's nothing wrong with cooking at 225, but that stall can drag out tremendously. If you are cooking with a ATC then that should be pretty painless, you just have to try to plan for it. I've got a Signals with a Billows too although I have years of experience cooking without it. I started out with a dog-bowl but I went ahead and bought the damper from Thermoworks and I have it on just full open. That still cuts some of the air from what is arguably an overpowered fan for some pits. The dogbowl is a pain to take on and off in my opinion. Even though a butt is 5 lbs it's usually from a 10 pound butt cut in half. These are still usually very thick so long cook times aren't out of the question. It's the thickness of the meat that matters. It's not really the weight.
 
RK -- I'm a relative newbie with my Billows. I just put it through one of the vent holes in the 18 WSM. I haven't tried the Billows damper yet. I haven't noticed any issues with ash on the food.

But tbh, I really don't sweat the ash issue. It does seem like the underside of the Firedial I use as a difuser does collect some ash -- so maybe that's giving me some filtering action?

With the Billows on a long cook, I will stir and re-position the coals. The fire definitely burns out from around where the one air intake is located.
 
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