first butts over brisket


 
T

Todd Randall

TVWBB Pro
My wife gave me a foodsaver for Christmas, and now is the right time to do a mega cook (mega for me anyway).

Just picked up 2 bone-in pork butts, single cryo package which weighs 19.84 pounds and a full packer brisket weighing in at 14.85 pounds!! And that was the smallest they had.

Picked up a 12" terra cotta saucer to try the cook waterless. Was gonna just wrap it and set it inside the shipped water pan. Or I also picked up a 14" one too.

I'm sure I'm going to have a ton of questions, I've cooked butts 2-3 times and brisket flats twice, all of it came out great, but never have tried at the same time.

I know time doesn't matter, but if I'm shooting for wrapping and coolering these about 12 noon tomorrow, when would you guys start? I was planning a 225-250 low and slow.

Figuring brisket fat cap down on bottom grate. Butt's fat cap up on top grate.

I can definitely say I'm feeling a little anxious, intimidated, and crazy excited about trying to pull off this cook.

Here's a pic to get this session started, I think you all will enjoy it.

Bigger than the Boy

Thanks,
Todd
 
I would start by about 8pm, that will give 16 hours cook time. You may find the 8lb butts are done well before the 15lb brisket. I would shoot for the higher end of your target 250F, at least to get things going.

About 6am-8am you might want to foil that brisket and put it on the top grate. The butts may be done around this time as well.

At any rate, you can always oven finish the brisket .... I finish butts, brisket or chuck at 275F in the oven in foil.

Have fun!
 
Hmmm . . . I posted on this earlier but my post is now gone? Weird.

Great picture, sounds like you've got a fun cook ahead of you. Here's my two cents. If you're wanting to stay in that 225 range and do your entire cook on the WSM I'd start her around 3:00 p.m. and as Shawn wrote your butts will probably be done prior to your brisket.

I'd also recommend foiling your brisket around 165.

Regarding the saucer here are a couple of tips; start your MM with 8 - 10 lit and catch your temps on the way up. I'd shut your bottom vents down around 200 and adjust accordingly from there to reach your desired temp. Remember, it's much easier to raise your temp than lower it when using the saucer.

Have fun, I'm looking forward to reading how your cook goes. Myself, I'm smoking two butts tonight.
 
Thanks guys.

I'm going to put the meat on at 8PM. We are not actually eating until 5-6PM tomorrow, so I've already built in plenty of go-long time. I'm also preparred for holding warm and reheating scenarios in case it does all finish way early.

My goal for 12 noon is because I have so much other stuff to do in the afternoon, I would rather have time to rest them for a couple hours and then pull the pork and chop the point before guests arrive. Even if I have to then refrigerate and reheat, so be it.

I'm going to try something new. I have a 22 quart roasting oven that has a 150 degree setting. I have a rack sitting in it about 1 inch off the bottom. I was gonna pour 3/4 of an inch of water in the bottom, then just stack sealed up disposable tin foil pans of the food. Pulled pork in one, chopped brisket point in the other, and leave the flat intact, still wrapped up in foil, and slice that just before it's time to eat.

Should be a nice humid 150 degree environment to use to reheat/keep warm depending on the finish times.

What do you think?

Todd
 
Todd,
I usually put two 7 pound butts over a brisket. I have never smoked a brisket as large as you have. But, I always get started around 6PM, put the butts on top grate. Around 8 or 9 I put the brisket in, and maintain 230 or so in the smoker over night. Usually the small brisket is ready at 10 or 11 next morning(6 pounder), but I keep my fire at 230 as much as possible, and I can't get the butts done until around 3 or 4 PM. I leave em on until they reach 195 internal..the brisket is unpredictable, but the butts are hard to mess up. Heck, if I can do them and they turn out good, anyone can...as long as they use the wizards's advice from this site!!! Good luck!!
 
Todd, I posted on another post that you visited but any way, can you take a pic of the meat on the WSM. I am curious to see it all on at once.
I had a briskett on today at 270 degrees, turned out good, almost 11 pounds and just over 11 hours.

Happy Days are here again!
 
Yup, I'll have pictures. Just got the meat on a little over an hour ago. Temps still coming up...close to 200 now. Actually, I'm on photobucket right now organizing the first set of pics :-)
 
Cook has been going about 3 hours now. My Maverick prob hasn't registered over 190. Top vent is 100% open. 2 of the bottom 3 vents are 100% open. The third one is closed because it is in the back and hard to operate inside the weather screen.

When it was only at 184 after 1.5 hours, I decided to drop my candy therm in the top vent. My thinking was that because the butts were so big, the Mav. smoker probe ended up only about 1" away from the pork and that cold pork could have been effecting the probe (and still is).

The candy therm goes in a good 4" from the top vent. After I put that in it registered 240 within a couple minutes.

I've checked all therms pretty recently too and they were accurate.

So I turned the 2 open bottom vents back to 1/2. Just checked now, after 30 more minutes minutes, Maverick is saying 188, went outside and checked the candy therm, 240. Checked the maverick transmitter outside just to make sure the receiver didn't loose connectivity, 188. Re-opened 1 vent back to 100% as I would rather have 250 at least up at the top vent.

Now I'm pondering whether I should quickly open the lid and try to slide the smoker probe away from the meat a little more. I'm was hoping to be able to keep some accurate readings on the maverick so I can set the alarms and get some sleep tonight :-) On the flip, I'm trying not to get it too close to the outside and then get high readings :-(

Todd
 
with 2 butts on the top, i usually put the maverick clip on the bottom of the top grate. but i don't use the maverick clip anymore since i got the probe tree from BBQguru.com. it can hold 3 probes and you can adjust the hights and positions and it's much more versatile as to where it can be put.
 
That's a decent idea, I'll try that next time. Or clip it to the underside on top. Didn't think about doing either one.

Here's a update. Went to bed at 2am, got up at 7:30am. Maverick alarms never went off all night. Smoker probe was regestering 208. Candy therm through top vent was registering 225. Went out and opened 2 of the 3 bottem vents to 100% (third vent has been closed the whole time).

Made some coffee and had some breakfast
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At 8AM temps were 216 at grate, 240 at lid. 12 hours in and I hadn't checked the temp in the brisket yet at all on the bottem grate. I opend the access door and pushed a taylor probe in. Registered 195. Oh crap I thought. I had never foiled the brisket or nothing. The one butt on top with the maverick probe was 167.

Since the butts looked like they were going to need some more hours, I decided that I needed to tend to the coals (stir them up and add some more unlit). So I took and carefully pulled the whole middle section right off and set to the side. Put the lid back on the charcoal ring so as not to get crazy hot coals burning. Next I double checked the butts with my taylor probe. 160's to 170's registering all over both of them. Moved the top rack off the middle section and set aside.

Next I started probing all over the brisket. I was getting 190's everywhere, even the point, with the exception of one small area that was in the 170's. Must have been a non-fatty section or something. The brisket was a USDA Choice and it had a TON of fat when I was trimming. I left 1/4" every on it. In all sections of the brisket except that 170 section, the probe was sliding in nice and easy. A fork also slid in easy and I could turn the fork 90 degrees either way quite easily. I decided that I needed to pull that brisket. I've never done a full packer and I was unsure how or when to separate the point from the flat. Since I wanted to get a better idea where the 170 degree section was, I decided to separate. There seemed to be a logical place where the two over lapped and I easly just pulled them right apart by hand. Re-checked with probe now in both point and flat. And btw, all of it was real juicy. The point was 190's everywhere. Just a little section on the flat, I'd say a 10-15% of the overall size was in the 170's. The rest of the flat was 190's. I pulled both, double wrapped in foil and they are resting in a cooler. Hopefully the residual heat will tenderize that 170 section.

Stirred the coals, after 12.5 hours, not too much left, maybe a single layer of charcoal. I had 2 full 5 pound coffee cans of left over old charcoal plus another 1/2 of a can. I dumped in the 1/2 and one full one on top, re-assembled, flipped the butts over, found a new probe spot, and put the butts back on. Cooker is running about 270 lid and 250 grate again now. Butts went down to 160 for some reason, guess I had them outside the cooker for too long.

Now here's my dilema, I probably will need to pull the brisket out of the cooler by 11AM. I will pull the point then. I don't plan on slicing the flat until dinner time which is 5-6pm tonight. So, should I try to hold the brisket warm in my humid, 150 degree roasting over for 6 hours (see couple posts up, I described the roasting pan plan). Or should I just pull the point then take and refridgerate both the flat and point until later this afternoon? And if I go that route, how long do you guys think it would take the brisket to reheat at 150 degress? Couple hours maybe?

What to do what to do?

Thanks for reading,
Todd
 
well..it sounds like your brisky is done and juicy. Im not sure Id hold till 5 or so...not that it shouldnt or couldnt go that route either. Aftera few hours in the cooler Id pull, put the juices in an aluminum pan, slice the flat and put in w/ the juices. Then just reheat in the oven. It will be super tender.
 
Thanks Gary,

That's not a bad idea either.

One of the butts hit 195 about 45 minutes ago, at 10:30am and I pulled it. Wrapped that up good and put in the bottem of the cooler then replaced both the flat and point on top. I didn't measure the temps in the brisket again yet, but they were only in the cooler for about 2 hours and were damn hot to the touch, so I think they were still well above 140-150 and should stay that way now with the addition of the hot butt to the cooler.

The other butt was bigger and is being stubern, it's at 192 now, will be pulling it off shortly.

I was thinking I'll add that to the bottem of the cooler, again put the point and flat on top, then now that my maverick probes are freed up, I'll stick one each in the flat and brisket to get some temps. Assuming they are still in the safe zone, I'm figuring on leaving it all in the cooler until the brisket cools to 150. With the addition of the butts, maybe I can get another 2-3 hours in there or more. I figure the longer I can leave them safely coolered, the better. Shouldn't hurt them, right. If I can get them to stay above safe temps until 2-3pm this afternoon, I'm hoping to be able to pull the point, cover tight in a foil pan, I was gonna leave the brisket un-sliced until dinner time but maybe I'll do what you suggest, slice it this afternoon, put juicy and slices in a foil pan, and put all of it in the 150 degree roaster for 1-2 hours. Put the mavrick probes in the butts at that point, take them out of the cooler and pull when they cool to 150 or so.

It'll be interesting how it all works out. Worst case, I have apple juice and beef broth I can add to the foil pans if need me to help juice it all back up
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Todd
 
What's safe low temp again when resting in a cooler? 150? 140? Thought I read one time a guy that owned a restaurant said 135?

Brisket is down to 150 in point and 153 in flat. How low can I let it go?

Todd
 
Todd, I've got to say I'm amazed that your brisket finished in 12 hours and before your butts.

I too recall something about 135 but couldn't find the thread. Something I do when "coolering" meat is fill it with boiling water, let it rest for about 5 minutes, dump the water, dry quickly and layer with towels. It seems to keep temp longer.
 
Hi Larry,

Ya I was surprised as well. It was a pretty marbled, fatty cut, maybe that helped it to finish early. 12 hours for the brisket, 14.5 hours for one of the butts, 15.5 hours for the other butt. It's all in a dry cooler now, brisket on top of the butts, holding 150-153. If I can get another hour out of that I'll be happy.

Off to clean the bathroom, pickup the kitchen, living room, vacuum, find the leaf for the kitchen table, etc
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Todd
 
So Todd, how'd everything turn out?

Just got done eating some of the butt I started last night at 12:00 a.m. 18 1/2 hours to get them to temp. They were 7.5 lbs each, couldn't believe it took this long.
 
Hi Larry and all,

Everything worked out well, no disasters.

I'd say the pork was the best. Even I as the cook didn't have any complaints about the pork. Butts are so easy, I love them.

The point was second best, good flavor, a tad dry, I had to use some bbq sauce to juice it up, but others didn't use sauce at all and liked it still.

I was not happy with the flat at all. I think it either cooked too long, was coolered too long, or held at "holding temp" too long. It fell apart, which I'm not a fan of and knowing that's it not supposed to....so very disappointed in myself for that. I've done 2 flats-only before this full packer and they were so much better. I know full packers are supposed to be harder to screw up, but I think I might go back to the flat only cooks. And I don't think I'll ever try them again for a big group.

The guests could of cared less though, everybody was happy and loved all the food. We only had about 10 people, so it's not like we were going to eat all of it last night, but as I offered doggy bags, everybody wanted some to take home. All I have left to vac seal is about 3/4 of the second butt and about 1 pound of the point (which I'll save for chili).

It was fun and a good "long cook" learning experience. Unfortunetly, I got so busy yesterday I did not get a chance to take any pictures of the finished products. Somebody earlier asked me to post a pick of the 14.5 pound brisket on the bottom grate, here is that: Nice_Packer.

The rest of the pics that I did take are here 2butts_and_a_brisket.

Thanks all,
Todd
 
GREAT PICS!!
Thanks for posting the pics.
I really like the enclosure. Did you build it yourself?
I'm not much of a welder, so I like to use uni strut and bolt the pieces together. Much more expensive though.
As for the fitting all the meat on, looks like a pretty tight fit. I use pans because I am lazy and don't like to clean up, especially in the winter.
With that much meat I don't know if it will all fit in pans.
Sounds like you had a lot of happy guests.
That is a complete success in my book.

Thanks for keeping us up to date,
 
Perhaps terra cotta and waterless changes the thermal dynamic inside the WSM such that the bottom rack gets more heat energy when packed than when using the water pan.

I'm gonna have to try that out because I almost always run with full top and bottom racks.

Glad to hear your cook came out well.
 
Tony
please tell me more about the probe tree.
I don't get much use out of the smoker probe on the ET73, its usually 30-50 degress different that the Pyrex candy thermometer in the lid.
The Pyrex is "right on", tested it with boiling water. But the 73 smoker probe is way off! I'd
like to have another food probe for the et73.
 
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