Holding in a cooler...

[Guest]

What do you guys mean when you take the meat off the WSM and hold it in a cooler? How long will it hold that way? It doesn't go bad? Just curious... I have no clue. I was wondering about that when I was going to cook some stuff on my kettle grill and knew I'd have cook different things in stages. Didn't end up doing that, but I was wondering how I would keep everything until serving time.

Thanks.

 

[Doug D]

Wrap the meat or bird in heavy foil and place it, wrapped in bath towels, in an Igloo or Coleman ice chest (no ice, of course). Did it with last Thanksgiving's turkey, and it was steaming hot 90 minutes later. With other meats, I've kept them serving-hot for several hours.

 

[Bruce Bissonnette]

Diana,

Recently on July 4th I cooked 4 pork butts and took them off the cooker at 192 degrees at 11:30am. I wrapped them in foil, placed them in a Coleman cooler and wrapped all in a big beach towel. At 3:30pm the temperature was still 162 degrees, plenty hot.

 

[Guest]

If you are concerned about the temperature of the meat during the holding period, you can insert a remote thermometer into the meat and monitor the temperature to make sure that it doesn't fall below 140. If you have a wireless setup, you don't even have to run the wire outside the cooler and your seal will be better, ensuring a longer hold time.