Cumulative or coincidental cook time?


 
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Jackomo

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This may be a silly question (but it is the beginners forum isn't it?) If I am cooking two butts of the same relative weight, do I double the cook time of one?

i.e. one six lb but cooks for say 9 hrs. Would two take 18 hrs, or still only about nine? or somewhere in between? /infopop/emoticons/icon_confused.gif
 
If you have enough fuel to maintain the desired cooker temp, a butt will take the same amount of time to cook regardless of if there are other butts in the cooker with it.

The only place I know where more food-- regardless of number of pieces-- takes longer to heat up to temp is a microwave.
 
I cooked a 3lb. butt and it took 11 hours and
then last weekend I did 4 - 3.5lb. (11lbs. total)
and it took 12 hours, so I guess the answer is
"about the same".
 
I smoked 2 8pound buts my first smoke. I put the meat on about 1030 am. I cooked tem till about 330pm then I foiled the till about 730 pm. Next time I will do without foil and cook a little longer. There was no real crust bark. I think without foiling them your looking at about 11-12 hrs. Thatis just my opinion. Someting else that really hellped me is a digital probe and I just watched the temp of the meat. Alot of the more experienced on the sight told me its done when its done and to not count on a certain time. I hope this helped a little.
 
I would have to disagree with Doug D on that. I believe it will take longer to cook two 8 lb butts than one, but not twice as long.

Paul
 
I second Paul. In my experience two or more butts takes a little longer to reach 195 than just one butt, but no where near double the time. Add a couple of hours to your cook time for planning purposes.
 
My question to Paul and Dave would be, isn't it that it takes a little longer for two butts to finish because the extra total mass of cold meat puts a bigger hit on cooker temp in the beginning, taking longer for it to rebound to target cooking temp?

What I was trying to illustrate for Jackomo was that, given that your fuel is outputting enough heat energy to maintain your desired cooking temp throughout the entire process, it shouldn't take any longer to cook 2 or more equal size pieces of meat than just one.

Perhaps I just should have said you need to figure 1-1/2 to 2 hours per pound per piece, not per total weight.
 
Doug D

I agree with what you're saying. However, if you're cooking in a WSM like we do with a finite fuel source which is being consumed and not replenished, my experience has been that it does take somewhat longer to cook two large pieces of meat, low and slow, than it would to cook one.

I will say, however, considering the time, effort and fuel it takes to cook on a WSM I very seldom cook only one butt, so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about.

Paul
 
I was always a little fuzzy on thermodynamics, but I think it is an energy vs. mass issue even beyond the initial temp drop. I was just relating my experience when I cook multiple butts on my WSM.
 
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