Cooking with both racks for the first time

[Brian Bo.]

I will be smoking three to four 6-7lb butts this weekend. I have only used both racks on my WSM to cook wings - so that doesn't count.

When I make pulled pork, I cook a 6-7lb butt for roughly 14 hours. What I'd like to know is, how much longer than 2hrs/lb should three or four of these butts take to cook? I cook my butts at 240-250F.

Thank you.

 

[Matt A 3]

I have done several double-grate cooks but always with 2 butts on top and a brisket on the bottom. In those cases the butts (also ~7lb) took about 14-15 hours, although the brisket came off the cooker a couple hours earlier thant that.

 

[Brad W]

Temp is always a guess (prefer the probe test myself) but at 240-250, I would do two things.

1) Based on a 7 lb butt, I would plan for a 10.5 -11 hour cook.
2) Place the smaller butts on the bottom rack to begin, exchange the racks at 5.5 hours and then monitor the top rack starting around the 10 hour time for doneness. When the top rack butts are done, you can choose to leave the butts on the bottom (longer time) or move then up to the top rack to cook faster.

Butts can be tricky though, will hold a lower temp for a long time before they jump up. I usually for for the 190-195 internal temp and then start checking probe style for doneness.