Butts cooking too fast/hot??


 
B

Brian Barker

New member
I started my cooking session at 11pm last night. So I went to bed at 1am thinking that I had my temp stabilized at 235. I was wrong. I woke up at 4am and my lid temp was 280. My butts are already at 170 and I'm not planning on these coming off the WSM until at least 12 or 1 this afternoon. My vents are now 100 closed trying to bring the fire back down. Am I in trouble?

Thanks,
Brian
 
Don't worry. You're ok.

Still awhile to go before you reach 195 degrees. You can foil them till you're ready to eat when they reach the internal temp.
 
You are not in trouble at all , WSM`s do have temp spikes , I wait till my butts hit 200 internal temp before pulling them off anf foiling.
 
Sounds to me like your timing will be almost perfect. You can easily have 3 to 5 hours from 170 to 195. You'll hit a plateau, hold for what seems like forever, then slide right through. Remember, you've got a least a 5 hour hold time available with HD foil in a cooler with towels. Some wrap in HD foil, close ALL vents and leave in the WSM. My preference is the cooler.

Paul
 
Well.....they're done. I was planning on a 5 hour hold with them being done at noon. Who's ever done a 10 hour hold? If I were to foil them and put them in the cooler, then just before pulling bring them back up to temp in the oven, would this be ok? This could be interesting.

Thanks for the help guys,
Brian
 
I think I would foil them and leave them in the cooler for 2 hours to let the juices redistribute. Then I would go ahead and do the pulling, put the PP in ziplock bags in the frig and reheat for dinner. There could be some issues in leaving them in the foil that long and the reheating will not solve those issues.

Paul
 
I'm with Paul.

In fact, I'd stick a few sheet pans or roasting pans in the fridge or freezer now to chill. Then, when you pull, put the pork, shallowly, in the first pan, stick it in the fridge, then repeat with the other pans and the rest of the pork. The point is to cool fairly quickly. Do the best you can then put into Zip-locs--fairly thinly--and place the bags in the fridge, not stacked on one another, on whatever you've got so that there is good air circulation. Reheat for service.

(Alternatively, pull, pack not-too-thickly into Zip-locs, press out the air, seal, then plunge into ice water to cool. Fridge when cold.)

The thing to avoid is pulling and packing thickly into bags and sticking them in the fridge. The center won't cool sufficiently. Instead, the a scenario will be set up that's perfect for bacterial development, just as if you'd left the butts in the cooler too long but, often, worse, as pulling cause the temps to drop into the worst part of the danger zone more quickly, and packing the bags thickly maintains this for quite some time.
 
Originally posted by Brian Barker:
Well.....they're done. I was planning on a 5 hour hold with them being done at noon. Who's ever done a 10 hour hold? If I were to foil them and put them in the cooler, then just before pulling bring them back up to temp in the oven, would this be ok? This could be interesting.


Thanks for the help guys,
Brian
Click to expand...

Some have foiled and packed that long but I would be afraid to try it.

I'd say pull and cool.
 
Looks I'm about to start pulling some pork. Thanks for the help and saving our BBQ. I'm a rookie at this and didn't even think about the bacterial infection that could occur if I just left them in the cooler all day. The last thing I need is 20 people getting sick off of my pork.

Thanks again guys,
Brian
 
Well,
Here is how it went. I pulled the pork and it tasted great. As I pulled it, it went directly onto frozen cookie sheets. After each sheet was full it was placed in the freezer to bring the temp down. Go figure, I only have tiny little zip lock bags so I bypassed that step. The pork came out of the freezer pretty cooled off. I placed it in foil serving trays, covered them, and put them in the fridge. I think that the pork is cool enough to get past the point of bacterial infection. If it's cool enough, should I be alright with having put it in serving trays then into the fridge?

Thanks,
Brian
 
Yup, should be.

It's always a time @ temp issue, and this applies both to pasteurizing foods (making them safe by cooking) and to preventing problems from temp abuse (allowing cold foods to get warm or warm foods to get cool).

It is not, in a circumstance such as yours, that the pork will become unsafe had you left it all day in the cooler or not chilled it quickly, it's that it could. The likelihood increases as time in the danger zone increases and, for bacteria that might have survived cooking or bacteria introduced after cooking (not uncommon with food items that are cooked and then handled before cooling and reheating (pulled pork, e.g.) or being used as an ingerdient in say, a salad (chicken cooked for chicken salad, pasta for pasta salad, e.g.), extended danger zone times allow for exponential bacterial growth.

Anyway, when you have time, see this post for more info.

Meanwhile, have a great day and a great meal.
 
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