Capacity question

[Matthew Appler]

Just bought some pork shoulder from Costco. They are each 13-14lbs. It doesn't look like 2 butts per pack, but one single cut of meat. I'm thinking it is either a butt/picnic pre-cut or there is actually 2 butts in there and I just can't see the cut.

Anyways, I am curious how much capacity people have been able to get out of the WSM. Ideally, I'd like to smoke all 23-25 lbs of shoulder on one grate and ribs on the other. Is this possible?

Thanks,
-Matt

 

[Bruce Bissonnette]

Matt,

I don't know if you could get all four butts on one rack. I recently cooked four butts that averaged 6.5-7lbs. and had two up top and two below comfortably.

 

[Matthew Appler]

Well, after much pondering last night I decided there was no way I was going to get 4 butts on one rack. As with others, the Costco pack was in fact 2 butts per cryopack, not a whole shoulder. I decided to just rub 2 of the butts and freeze the other pack for another day.

I ended up with 2 butts on the bottom grate (Renowned Mr. Brown) and 4 racks of ribs on the top rack set up on a weber rib rack. This is the first time I've done ribs on the WSM. I'm using the BRITU recipe, but not the BRITU process. I'm using the Minion method, and I put the butts on 2 hours before the ribs, so I'm hoping that the reduction in smoke somewhat approximates the BRITU process. I also bought Apple wood instead of Cherry, so there is substitution in smoke wood.. /infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

Another hour and the ribs should be done. I'm getting hungry.... /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

-Matt