bottom grate top grate cooking time differences & best practices for rotating butts?

[Tom Raveret]

Yesterday i did 5 butts 3 in one WSM and two in the other.

Did as an overnighter started at 2100 went to bed at 2300 after temps had stabilized. Woke at 4:00 to a beebing et-73 as one of the cwsms was running a little hot (260 ) brought it back down to 245 went back to bed.

I didnt flip add water or even open the lid until the meat probe on both read 192 which interestenly on both cookers was 0930

Now one of the WSM's was running a bit hottter was the one that had the three butts so that may explain how the top shelf roasts all were done at the same time but heres where it gets interesting.

I took off the 4 roasts on the top and stuck a temp probe in the bottom roast and were at 176
It took until 1600 before I could get that roast up to 187 and then I had to pull it off the WSM as I was going to be gone for a couple of hours and didnt want to leave it.

I saran wrapped all the roasts and foiled them and put them inthe oven at 170 for two hours then let set for 1/2 hr before pulling. They were all moist and perfectly done roasts (a couple of muscles in the shoulder roast seema little dryier than others but I expect thats just natural.

All these roasts were about the same size and weight and seemed to have similar fat content.

Any thoughts on why it took an additional 5.5 hrs for the one roast? i wouldnt think a 10-15 degree temp varation would cause that.

One other thought the cooker stayed in the 230 range until 1400 (dropped to 212) then I added coals formn the other WSM to get it back up to the 230-240 range.


This opens up anouterh question as well. While I like the convenience of not moving the roasts it this way I do it for another reason as well, Whenever I move a roast that has been cooking for 6-8 hrs I seem ot lose some of the bark on the grate. the roasts get harder to handle and still keep the bark in tact what are others thoughts as to the necessity of moving/ flipping the roasts for even cooking and best practices for doing so.

Thanks sorry this went long but I'm hoping to start a good discussion here

 

[Larry Wolfe]

Tom,
The only thing I can think of is because the is a temp difference between the top and middle grates.

But on the other hand both times I have done 4 butts or picnics (2 on top, 2 on bottom) they have finished at the exact same time...

....go figure. The bottomline is they are done when they are done. One solution may be to rotate the butts (top to bottom/bottom to top) half way through the cooks.

 

[Chris Finney]

Were the two set up exactly the same (except for meat placement)? Did you use the same ammount and type charcoal? Same ammount of water? All butts around the same size? Was there anything different about the meat prep?

Maybe it has something to do with thermal load. Having twice the "heat sink" on the top grate as the bottom grate. I don't know...just guessing.

You should try it with two on the bottom and one one the top and see what happens.

 

[Tom Raveret]

the latin phrase I beieve is "ceteris parabis" all things being equal and yes they all were. of course there was 15 lb of meat in one cooker and 22.5 in the other.

The two on the bottom and one on the top is an interesting hypothesis though.

 

[Chris K]

When I overnight butts I usually switch top and bottom meet in the morning or after 12 hours. whchever it may be. They usually come out about the same time. 2 WSMs overnight is awesome, just out of curiosity did you have to feed like 100 people?

 

[Tom Raveret]

Actually it was more like 55 people. There was a fair bit of leftovers. Two 22.5 kettles wasnt enough to warm it back up though. I really should have brought 4.