Butt Capacity of the 18.5"


 
C

ChadVKealey

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For an upcoming scout trip, I'm planning to smoke 4 bone-in boston butts and would like to do it in my 18.5" WSM. Getting it to the campsite shouldn't be an issue, but I've never cooked this much meat at one time. All four butts are between 8-10 lbs., two of them being a bit smaller than the other two.

My thought is to inject them all with Chris Lilly's injection mix the Thursday before the trip. They'll hang out inside of jumbo ziplock bags in a cooler with lots of ice until I rub and put them on/in late Friday night. I'm planning to put the two smaller ones on the lower grate (where it's usually a bit cooler) and the two slightly larger ones on the top (where it's usually a bit warmer). My biggest concerns, however, are airflow and charcoal capacity/requirement.

To help with airflow, I was thinking of binding the butts up with butcher's twine so they can't spread out too much, possibly even standing them up on their sides (rather than fat cap up, as I would usually do). Anyone ever cooked 'em that way?

In terms of charcoal needs...they're going to cook from about midnight Friday and will be consumed for dinner (around 5:00 PM) on Saturday. I'm figuring they'll be ready to remove/rest by about 2:00 Saturday, but there will be plenty of buffer time if they take longer. I've done cooks that long (just two butts, top & bottom) on a fully loaded charcoal bin. I assume the extra mass will consume a bit more fuel? FWIW, I use a Brinkmann pan, usually with bricks, but I'm planning to switch to sand. Also, I plan to use my PartyQ, at least through the night so I can get some sleep, set at 225.

So, does this all sound feasible? Or am I asking too much of the 18.5? If so, one of the other parents has a UDS, so we could probably bring that along and do two in each, but considering how much other equipment we'll be bringing, I'd prefer to keep it down to just one smoker.
 
I've put 2 butts on one grate several times without tying. You just want to make sure they don't extend past the water pan on the lower rack where the hot air from the fire comes up, and if you can leave a small gap between the butts that is ideal.

I would load the fire ring as full of unlit as you can and add your lit on top. Maybe do a dry run with things cold to make sure you have clearance to the water pan.

If you have some way of holding the butts after cooking I would suggest starting a little earlier, say 10pm. My first double butt & brisket cook took about 16hrs total with 2 9lb butts and a 12.5lb brisket, cooking around 225-250F
 
I have the 22.5, but I bet you can easily fit 4 onto the 18.5. I do agree with the 10pm comment. as in start coals about 9:15pm, meat on the cooker at 10pm.

Much better to start it earlier then it turned out you needed to then have hungry scouts waiting at 8pm etc... for it to finish. If you get close to being done around 12 noon or so you can dial back the heat or quite honestly I would think just pull off round 1-2pm, wrap in foil and then towel and toss in a clean cooler.
 
The larger volume of meat means a larger cold mass so it may take significantly longer for Temp to come up. The party Q should help.

If you are using the Q to regulate temps then consider skipping the bricks and sand and just use the empty foiled water pan. The bricks and sand will only absorb heat and make the Q do more work IMO.

As Paul noted above, "If you have some way of holding the butts after cooking I would suggest starting a little earlier" An Empty Dry Beverage Cooler is perfect for this as the insulation hold heat for hours. You can fill the cooler with hot water first to allow it to heat the insulation, then dump and dry out. Place butts in foil and wrap in dry towels in a warmed cooler and they will hold for hours. Butts hold Extremely Well.
 
Charlie Lauer said:
The larger volume of meat means a larger cold mass so it may take significantly longer for Temp to come up. The party Q should help.

If you are using the Q to regulate temps then consider skipping the bricks and sand and just use the empty foiled water pan. The bricks and sand will only absorb heat and make the Q do more work IMO.

As Paul noted above, "If you have some way of holding the butts after cooking I would suggest starting a little earlier" An Empty Dry Beverage Cooler is perfect for this as the insulation hold heat for hours. You can fill the cooler with hot water first to allow it to heat the insulation, then dump and dry out. Place butts in foil and wrap in dry towels in a warmed cooler and they will hold for hours. Butts hold Extremely Well.
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Where we're camping it's a 1/4 mile walk to any water, so heating up water just to warm the cooler seems like a lot of unnecessary hauling. I think I'll bring along some of the foil-wrapped bricks I usually use in the water pan, heat those up on one of the stoves after we cook breakfast Saturday and throw them into a cooler (with a towel in the bottom) to pre-heat it. Then, when they're close to done, I'll foil the butts up and put them in the cooler until supper. I've kept butts warm for 3-4 hours using that method in the past.

Also, I'll probably take your advice on the water pan and run it empty/foiled. Question on this, though: should I still expect the temp on the lower grate to be a bit cooler with the water pan empty? I've always sort of assumed that the mass of (bricks, water, or whatever) in the pan is what shielded the lower grate and provided the lower temps, so without that mass, will the temps be more even between the two, or might the lower grate be hotter than the top? I'd kind of doubt that (the whole heat rising thing), and can certainly run a test to find out, but if someone's already done this, I could save myself a load of charcoal.
 
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Heat rising is part of it but remember that the water pan, weather full or empty, does still act as a heat deflector forcing heat towards the outside walls that reflects back to center as it rises. as such, the water pan "protects" the lower grate more so there is some variation in heat. As chad points out the how much of a variation is the question. The study above was likely using the old style water pan which was a SJ lid without the vent holes and handle. Your brinkmann pan or the new style water deeper pan (SJ Bowl) are deeper so they may defect heat differently.Not sure that any of that answers the question, im just typing as i think :)

As chad noted this has been discussed and tested and there may be a discrepancy but given the amount of meat the difference will be minimal and will likely level off as the cook goes on. You might be able to further minimize this by putting the smaller butts on bottom. This will make handling easier as well as the lower grate is slightly smaller too.

You can bump temps up a bit too if you want to cut the cook time down a bit. 250 might be a better temp with all that meat but that's all preference.

As long as you are brokering in some time which you already are, it will all work out fine.
 
just thinking.... Smoked Pulled Pork is amazing. I love it. BUT for something like this I am wondering if maybe you could do pulled chicken instead. Just takes so much less time and the kids at least I am thinking won;t think much about one versus the other

you still get the "wow, this was so cool you brought a smoker for this" without the hours and hours of smoking
 
Keith R said:
just thinking.... Smoked Pulled Pork is amazing. I love it. BUT for something like this I am wondering if maybe you could do pulled chicken instead. Just takes so much less time and the kids at least I am thinking won;t think much about one versus the other

you still get the "wow, this was so cool you brought a smoker for this" without the hours and hours of smoking
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This is our scout pack's big Spring camping trip. We'll probably have about 70-80 mouths to feed. Mouths attached to people who've been hiking around the woods, canoeing, fishing, etc. So, hungry mouths. Cost- and labor-wise, pulled pork has worked out really well for this event in the past. We did chicken thighs & legs on our Fall campout. I pre-smoked all of them, so we just needed to heat through and slap on some sauce, but even that was a logistical nightmare (too many pieces, not enough space on the grill).
 
ChadVKealey said:
This is our scout pack's big Spring camping trip. We'll probably have about 70-80 mouths to feed. Mouths attached to people who've been hiking around the woods, canoeing, fishing, etc. So, hungry mouths. Cost- and labor-wise, pulled pork has worked out really well for this event in the past. We did chicken thighs & legs on our Fall campout. I pre-smoked all of them, so we just needed to heat through and slap on some sauce, but even that was a logistical nightmare (too many pieces, not enough space on the grill).
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Oh ya got it. With numbers that large I completely agree with you. You get more per sq. inch of cooker space with the pork. I thought you were feeding more like ~ 20 or so.
 
Now, what I might do is start the pork even earlier so I can get it out to rest around lunch time and throw in a few chickens during the afternoon. There are always some who don't eat pork, and burgers and dogs are soooo pedestrian. ;)
 
ChadVKealey said:
Now, what I might do is start the pork even earlier so I can get it out to rest around lunch time and throw in a few chickens during the afternoon. There are always some who don't eat pork, and burgers and dogs are soooo pedestrian. ;)
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where is this campout? I may have to stop by for 'quaility control' ha ha
 
You shouldn't have a problem with 4. If space is an issue, cut the butts in half. I have a post on here describing my success with it.
 
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