Cooking butt and ribs together questions.

[Guest]

Having a smallish family gathering Sunday at noon. Smoker menu to feature 1/2 dozen racks and a couple of butts with some ABT's for good measure.

I'm thinking of an overnight cook on butts... get to try out my new DigiQ II that just arrived

, then put ribs and abt's on Sunday morning.

I assume butts would be best on bottom rack, with balance on top rack. I snagged a rib rack the other day, so I hope the will all fit on one level. Questions are:

Do I need to be aware of anything with butts on lower racks for that amount of time?

Timing issues.... hopefully I will do a 225' low and slow cook, is it realistic to try and have things come together at one time or am I kidding myself?

 

[Tony Hunter]

If you don't use any liquid in the water pan then it can get warmer on the bottom grate, but its not a problem - just a few degrees in my experience. Since you are doing low and slow - you should not have any issues at all. Also, I have done cooks they way you are and try to time putting on the ribs or other meat so they come off "around" the same time. Definitely doable.

 

[Lee Morris]

I did a very similar cook last weekend. Did 3 butts (all 7-8 pounds) overnight on the bottom rack (used my brand new DigiQ and it worked like a charm). In the morning I added 4 big slabs of babybacks to the top rack. That pretty much filled up the cooker.

I used a 12 inch clay pot base in the water pan and set the DigiQ for 231 degrees measured about 2 inches below the top rack.

This was the biggest cook I have ever done as far as pounds of meat in the cooker at one time. A few things I learned during the cook:

1. The DigiQ II is amazing!! Temps were rock solid.
2. It takes a lot of charcoal to cook that much meat. Started with a packed full ring of Rancher. Had plenty of fuel to maintain temps overnight, but had to add a lot in the morning to finish the cook.
3. Cooking that many butts on one rack added to my expected cook time. It took about 2 hours 15 minutes per pound to get them in the low 190's...about 16 hours.
4. After a while, the temps were pretty even through the cooker. Pit probe (between butts and top rack) was at 231 and termometer in the top vent was about 245. Figure the butts were 225-230 and ribs were about 240.

All in all, it turned out great!

Have fun!!