High Heat Butt & Ribs


 

Jason B

TVWBB Fan
Hi folks,

I'm going to cook a boston butt and 3 slabs of baby backs for Super Bowl.

I plan to reproduce my last high heat butt cook which turned out amazingly well.

Question is throwing some baby backs on at ~300-350 how much can I expect to reduce cook time? I usually do a 3-1-1 method @ ~250 degrees and they turn out perfectly. I'm thinking maybe 2-1-1 ??? I'll have to use the pull test, but was hoping I might get some feedback from someone who has already done this cook.

Thanks!
 
These ribs took about 2 hours. They were part of a high heat butt/rib cook. I didn't foil butts nor ribs. Normally I foil ribs, never butts.

This cook, the babybacks took a hair over 2 hours 20 min, a typical cook. I cook by color and tenderness, not time. The ribs cook till deeply colored then I foil with a little liquid. The ribs cook in the foil till they are just tender at which point I remove them from the foil. I put them back on the grate to firm the bark, usually 3-7 min.

If putting the back ribs on after the butts are well underway and the cooker is already at your target cooktemp (in other words, you're not going to Minion the start for the ribs because the cooker is already going), you can expect a significantly shorter cook time than the 2:22 noted for the cook at my second link. (Significantly shorter might not be desireable.) Note the cooktemps in both posts. Your timing will depend on actual cooktemps and their duration.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">
I plan to reproduce my last high heat butt cook which turned out amazingly well. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Would you mind sharing your high heat butt method? I'm considering this for the Super Bowl and have not found a consensus on the best high heat method to use. Do you foil? I used to enjoy the 16 hour cooks, but my wife just gave birth to twin boys and my free time has become scarce and thus more valuable.
 
Mark
I did a fast cook for my last crack at Butt.
I wet the pork down and put rub on it,
minion method lighting, put apple wood on,
I put the pork in aluminum pans, one on each rack.
I closed all bottom vents to start with, lid temp went up to 275 and then I opened one of the vents just a scosh. Lid temp then leveled off at 325.
I covered them with tin foil at 160 degrees, then uncovered them at 190 degrees to dry out the bark alittle.
Also after uncovering I turkey basted out some of the rendering from the pan.
They took 5 hours to cook.
Everyone thought it was great and no one was the wiser that I did it in less than 12 hours
Dave
 
Hey Mark,

I "pseudo-minion" by getting a FULL Weber chimney of blazing hot coals placed on top of an almost overflowing ring. Pan has no water and is covered with foil.

Vents fully opened all around. I live in Florida so the outside temps aren't usually a problem. I get up to ~330ish pretty quickly like that.

There was more smoke than usual when I placed the butts on the top rack, which may have been a good thing since the higher heat may not allow for as much smoke absorption as a low and slow. Also of note (in terms of differences from my usual 16+ hours cooks) I rubbed the butts the night before and wrapped tightly in saran-wrap. I also used boneless for the first time in a long while which let me get a LOT of extra rub in places that the bone-in usually don't. I tied that all up tightly with butcher cord before putting in the fridge for the night.

I think the whole cook time for 2 ~14lb'ers took about 6 hours. I'm going to be more observant this time of just how long it does take. I held the butts for a lot longer than I expected, but they keep their temps amazingly well foiled in a cooler. I took the butts off the smoker around ~195.

My trick this time is going to be doing these butts the same way, but figuring out how to do those loin backs along with them.

Luckily Kevin posted some great info so I have a baseline to work with.

Happy Q'n !!
 

 

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