First Smoking Run; need some advice


 
M

Matt Shirley

New member
I am going to fire up the smoker for the first time later on this week. I will be doing a large pork butt, a medium brisket, and 3 whole chickens for pulled chicken. I am planning on using pecans chunks because they are suppose to go good with everything, and am going to be using water in the pan. I do however have some questions:
1) What should I put on the top rack, and what should go on the bottom?
2) Around how long should I expect for the chickens?
3) Decent time gauges to go by for the brisket and pork butt based on weight?
I am planning to run the smoker at around 225 degrees for the entire smoke. I would like a nice slow long smoke on all of the meat. Any information would be great. Thanks in advance.
 
The chickens will cook a lot faster than the brisket and pork. I would put the chicken on the bottom grate for safety reasons. At 225 the chickens will take more than a few hours. How long exactly? Depends on the individual chicken.
 
Chicken on top or chicken on bottom. Personally I would go with the chix on top. They do cook faster and as a result will dry out quicker too. On top it is easier to mop them (recommended), then when you hit your target temp move them off, foil and hold. Then move your brisket, butts, ribs whatever up top to finish.
 
Multi-meats cooks can be tricky.

Personally, I'd cook the brisket and butts first, wrap 'em in towels and hold them in a cooler, and then cook the chicken.

If you must do them together, I'd put the chicken on top.
 
I would put the chickens ontop,aslong as u dont pull the brisket or butt before the chicken is done there will be no issue with saftey.

And @225 time for the chicken will be around 3.5-4.5h i think depend on zise ofc.
 
If everything is cooked to safe temps the chicken on top is not a safety issue.

Unless you are very familiar with this sort of thing I would not suggest doing a mixed cook for your first time. That said, if you're going for it, 225 is quite low. If that's your target (I would suggest higher) you can expect a lengthy cook. I don't know what you mean by 'large butt'; to me that's ~10 lbs and at that size at that temp you're probably looking at a time well into the teens if not more (like 20 hours). Actual cook times will depend on meat mass and actual cooktemps, as well as meat temp at the outset.

Though the chicken will cook faster, at low temps it will take quite a while. (I always cook chicken at well over 400 because I like crisp skin.)

To me a 'medium brisket' is 12-13 lbs. One might expect a time of 14-16 hours but, again, it will depend on the factors noted above.

Welcome to the board.
 
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