High temps = dry butt: What'd I do wrong?? (long)

[Ron Hunter]

I'm a newbie with the bullet. Had some problems and I'd appreciate your input.

This was my 2nd cook with the bullet. First was GREAT! - 2 chickens and one 8lb butt.

Below is a log of the 2nd cook. The biggest problem is getting the heat down. I've read a new cooker will cook at a higher temp but....

Also, I've checked for roundness. The bowl is round, the bottom of the middle section is off about 1/16th of an inch, the top within that range. The door is a snug fit. slight bend in lower third of door about 1/16th" Used the brinkman pan with almost 2 gallons of water.

1. Why the hot temps and inability to control?
2. one butt I took off read 200 on the bone side and 185 on the other. Bone side dry.

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong??

LOG:
Start Date July 3, 2007
Started with 2 pork butts orig 12lb, defatted, and one slightly larger. Larger placed on top grate. Fired with minon method and apple and hickory chunks. % % %
Time Lid Temp Meat Temp Vent 1 Vent 2 Vent 3
11:20pm --- -- 100 100 100
11:35 220 -- 100 100 100
11:45 225 25 25 25
12:00 250 25 25 25
12:15am 265 25 25 25
12:30 300 0 0 25
12:50 275 0 25 25
1:10 280 0 0 25
4:10 255 0 0 25
6:30 280 0 0 25
7:30(t(b) 200 170-180 0 0 25 was 280 before turning pork butts
9:04 280 180-190 0 0 25
10:00 280 0 0 25(1)
10:20 270 --- 0 0 25(2)
11:33 260 185-200 0 0 25(3)
12:30 250 145 25 25 25(4)

(1) Added 2 - 4lb chickens (lower grate), smoke wood, 2 qts water tap warm, mover smaller butt to top grate with the larger
(2) took off larger butt, placed foil over remaining butt to reduce smoke
(3) Took off 2nd butt placed chicken on top add one piece of apple 1 inch sq.
(4) Took off chickens, temp in meaty part of breast was 145, joint 170. breast was pointed at center and I assumed it was cooked. When I pulled it – it was.

Thanks

 

[Kevin Kurka]

I'd go straight from 100% vents to 0 when you hit about 200 deg. That will help a lot in slowing down the fire. It's a lot easier to get hotter than cooler, so err on the side of keeping it cool. Otherwise, your log looks fine. I had good luck removing the butts at about 193 or so (it's about impossible to be that close with variations within even a single piece of meat).

One thing you don't mention is foiling the butts. Did you foil and allow to rest in for at least an hour or 2 before pulling?
Did you add any juice to the foil? If not, that may help.

 

[Craig Castille]

How much lit charcoal are you using to start with.

In the summer, too much lit can make charcoal very difficult to bring down.

 

[K Kruger]

Very true.

I'm also wondering about lit quantity.

There are two issues here: temps and the portions of the butt that were dry. They aren't necessarily related. I cook butts frequently at the very temps you cooked.

When I am cooking butts lower/slower I don't go to 0 but I do mostly close off all lower vents when the temps hit 200--to about 1/4 open. Then, after a little while, I gauge what i might need to do vent-wise by watching how rapidly or slowly the temps continue to rise. If the rise is fairly slow and starts to peter out as the lid passes 240 I generally leave the vents alone. If the rise seems quicker, and if it appears it is not slowing, I close off a little more; conversely, if the rise seems to slow as the temps near 220-225 (and itseems like there isn't the momentum to take them much higher) then I'll cheat the vents open very slightly.

Looking at your settings/readings it seems clear that a bit too much unlit became lit too soon, then temps were allowed to rise further because of open vents. The 12:00 250 25 25 25 reading is fine, but then the temp reading at 12:15 shows a continued rise of 15 degrees in 15 min. At that point the vents need to go to barely open, or two closed one barely open, as the rise is too quick.

Though the settings subsequent indicate that you were on the right track, I would have left my settings above (all barely open, or two closed one barely open) till the temps dropped below my target before thinking about cracking oneor two slightly more open. If the temps did not drop below my target then I would know that the problem is that too much unlit became lit too soon and I would need to choke the air intake a bit more, if possible, or I'd simply reframe the cook plan as a higher heat one.

Closing off sooner, as Kevin indicates above, is key to a successful MM cook as it disallows too much unlit to become lit too soon.

As for the butts: Cooking at higher temps often means that one must abandon any notions of specific temps indicating 'done'. They might--but easily might not--and one must use one's 'sense' of the cook as well. In other words, using both temp as a guide (generally) but, more important, the sense that the butts should be about ready, can point you toward checking them sooner than you might if using temp alone. Butts I cook at higher temps are almost always 'done' when temps still read in the mid-to-upper 180s. I just know from experience that when cooking butts at higher temps it is likely that I'll want to start checking for doneness a while after the butts move out of the lower 180s, like an hour or so. Usually, within an hour or so after I check the first time, they're ready, irrespective of temp readings.

With both these issues--the MM and higher temp cooks (planned for or not)--it's just a matter of experience which comes with cooking on your cooker more. As you cook more, you'll get a very good sense from watching your cooker temps--the rise or fall; the relative speed of the rise or fall--and simply know what you need to do--cheat vents open or closed a tiny bit or a lot, or leave alone--and you'll scarcely think about it. Kind of like learning to drive a stick shift. In the beginning you have to think about it all the time. Soon, though, you're cruising--and barely remember when you stopped thinking about it; it's become second nature.

 

[Ron Hunter]

Kevin
On my first cook the butt was at 185 when I took it off. It was very moist. On this cook, my 2nd, the reason I kept the butts in longer was due to the temp extremes in the same roast – bone side being much warmer. I was concerned one side wouldn’t be cooked. Yes, I foiled the butts, placed them in a cooler with newspaper and towels. The smaller butt was noticeablely more moist than the larger – this makes sense because the smaller was on the lower grate for most of the cook. Both butts rested for over an hour before pulling.

Craig
Used minion method with a full ring. Used 15 briq. to start – placing in the center. Also had about 5 – 7 small chunks of apple and hickory on top with a similar amount nested in the unlit charcoal BTW – used kingsford.

K Kruger
I had considered closing the 3rd vent also but I thought that might kill the fire. (experience does help

) Also I probably sequenced the cook incorrectly. I was wanting the chickens to be ready and rested at approx the same time as the pork. So I put one butt on each grate. When I finally added the chicken I put both butts on the upper grate and the chickens on the lower. I also added smoke wood for the chickens which only exacerbated the heat problem. I guess I should have placed the chickens in the beginning, foiled them and reheated if necessary.

Closing the vents – do you also recommend damping the lid vent too?

What caused the temp difference in the same chicken pieces – breast 145, thigh leg joint area 170? Since the breast was done, I’m thinking somehow the breast must have cooled some??

Little dry on the roast but still very tasty. I appreciate the help.

Ron

 

[K Kruger]

Temps do not indicate 'done', necessarily, one of the most confusing things out there in the barbecue world. I could go on (at length!

) but suffice to say that, in other words, your reading of, say, 188, in a butt cooked at ~250 'means' something different than my temp of 188 in a butt cooked at, say, 300.

I'm tempted to call temp as an indicator of 'done' a myth but it really isn't quite that. What temps are in indicator of, if anything, though, is time. What I mean by this is that meats for barbecue, cooked low/slow within a particular temp range, will tend to have internal temps of a particular range, around the same time as the meat is considered 'done'.

It is not so much that when X temp is achieved the meat is done; it is more that when the meat is done it will be likely to have a temp somewhere around X. One sees that this is more the case when one cooks butts that stall in a secondary plateau in the 180s, or when one cooks high-end Prime or Wagyu briskets. In the former scenario, one can raise the cook temp to budge the internals or one can simply wait an hour or two and check the feel of the meat--it will often indicate that it is done even though the internal temps have barely moved. In the latter scenario, one usually finds 'done' at significantly lower temps than one find it when cooking standard briskets. Were temp to be the indicator, neither would make sense.

I don't often check internal temps for butts unless I'm going to write about the cook (because I'm often asked) but I do use a probe to get the feel of the meat. If I happen to grab the Thermapen to test with then I do see the number (it turns on when it's opened; often I grab an unplugged Mav probe so no numbers are possible). If I'm inclined to think the butts should soon be done (because of the temps at which I'm cooking and the time the butts have cooked) and I test them and they're not, I often find that they've stalled in the 180s. I just test them again in an hour or two and that's usually that. Far more often than not, the temps haven't budged, but the meat feels soft (or soft enough that I know sufficient rendering has occurred) and that, with the rest, it will be just as I want it. On other cooks the butts don't stall--or, if they do, they get through it. In these cases, when I am temping or testing with a working therm, the temps are usually ~190-192. I don't check in several places because, again, it isn't temp that tells me when it's done, it's feel. Temps can easily vary within the same butt (as you've discovered). If the butt feels right it's done--irrespective of temps.


The upshot: Internal temps--for meats cooked low/slow within the generally accepted low/slow range--can be helpful in telling you when to test the meat by feel. It takes a little experience: if the temps indicate that it might be done, and you feel it and you aren't quite sure, wither pull it then or go a bit longer (feeling it again before you pull it). Then, later, when you pull, slice, or in other ways handle the meat, and when you eat it, you'll get much more of a sense of how feel corresponds to 'done'--done to your taste--and, after a few cooks, will feel much more confident in using your own senses to determine doneness rather than waiting for a particular number on a therm. In other words, if the meat temp said X and you felt the meat and, winging it, decided to pull it and then, later, you discovered that the meat was perfect, you'll know this for future cooks. If, however, the meat was not quite done enough, you'll know for next time that if you feel the meat and it feels the same as the last cook that it needs more time; the opposite, of course, if in the former cook you found the meat overdone.

Getting used to the feel of the meat means that you no longer need to use internals as be-all end-all indicators of done (they're not, as noted), but simply guides to let you know when testing the meat by touch might be in order. Moreover, because meats do vary in internal structure, getting a sense of done by feel will eliminate concern about variations in temps and cook times caused by variations in structure.

(I hope I've made sense here and haven't confused the issue further!)


As for the chicken: I'm not sure. Were you temping with a digital tip-sensitve therm or with an analog bimetal therm? And, where in the breast--specifically--did you temp?

 

[K Kruger]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Closing the vents – do you also recommend damping the lid vent too? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
No. That's rarely necessary.

Usually, if one experiences a spike in temps it's best just to close lower vents, keep an eye on things and wait it out. Meanwhile (especially if the spike seems dramatic), scrutinize the cooker. Is the middle section seated correctly?

Spikes are often caused by wood combusting all at once. Starved of air (because of closed lower vents) it won't last long. If you're certain the cooker is intact, waiting is all that's needed after closing the lowers, returning them to at or near their former positoions when the spike is over, checking over the course of the next 20 min or so to see if adjustments are needed.

There is not one meat item we typically cook that can't handle moderate temp skikes.

Major spikes--the kind one might experience if the middle wasn't seated correctly, allowing for too much air, have to be dealt with--quickly and carefully. Remove the meat(s) first, remove flaming wood, if any, then fix the cooker--being especially careful if water is in the pan.

Best to avoid this possibility by checking the cooker for proper fit when you assemble it!

If the problem is one of a continued temp rise--not a spike--then this is an issue of too much air intake. Closing the lower vents entirely should handle it though it will take some time, less if using water, potentially significantly longer if using sand or another alternative. Removing some lit is an option in those cases.

 

[J Reyes]

Ron, my simple method when going low and slow is to allow the WSM to reach about 200 and then close off two vents entirely and the third about half way.

It should continue to rise and settle in the 220-240 range. Adjust the lone vent if it does not. If it drops below your low target and the lone vent is wide open adjust/open one of the others.

John

 

[Steve Abrams]

This may seem silly but..

I have 3 WSMs and they are all slightly out of round. Here is what I do.. When I assemble the WSM I twist the center section around. At a point it will seem to "lock" in place. If I have a bad smoke leak at the top I do the same thing. The smoke (air) leak stops. Maybe this might help.

 

[Ron Hunter]

Thank all of you for the help and information you given me. My BIL and his wife are in from Honduras and I haven't been able to do much on the computer.

Mike has offered to buy the next butts so my last try must not have been too bad.