how long can i keep pork butt in foil after cooking.


 
J

Jon Chappel

TVWBB Member
I did my first overnight cook and did not plan it well. The pork has been wrapped for about 2.5 hours. Its in a drawer of an old fridge (not plugged in). We eating in about 3 hours what should I do?. Ps it still feels very hot.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Jon Chappel:
I did my first overnight cook and did not plan it well. The pork has been wrapped for about 2.5 hours. Its in a drawer of an old fridge (not plugged in). We eating in about 3 hours what should I do?. Ps it still feels very hot. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I've kept my up to 4 hours in an empty cooler. Foil the **** out of the butt, place it in the cooler, take up left over space with towels or newspaper. Have a beer. Make sure you keep the temp probe in the butt (pork butt, not yours) to make sure it doesn't fall below about 145 degrees.

Some people even pour hot or boiling water in the cooler before doing all of that. I've never bothered with that, but I'm sure it doesn't hurt.
 
What you want to do is keep the surface temp above 140 degrees. Double wrapped in foil with a towel or two, I went almost seven hours once.
Butts came off the smoker at 1:30 AM and rested until about 8 AM. When I wrapped them I put a temp probe on the surface to monitor.
Unlike when your cooking, it's the surface temp that becomes important. The internal will be higher.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Marc:
Unlike when your cooking, it's the surface temp that becomes important. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

That I did not know. Good tip Marc.
 
Besides preheating the cooler (a GOOD one!) with hot water, quickly double wrapping all the butts in foil, and adding wadded newspaper to fill in the empty space, if trying to keep the meat hot for the better part of a day, I also add some thermal mass like a couple of 2 liter bottles full of hot water. If only cooking one butt, you need more thermal mass than that, and I read that Alton Brown suggests using hot bricks. I'd be careful about getting your cooler TOO hot, though.

I've kept bbq hot all day, no problem. The clarification of surface temp is a good point, and I believe the recommended necessary temp requirement is 140*. However, all my life, I've seen folks let food sit out at family gatherings and I've never seen somebody get sick off of a cold drumstick yet...not even once.
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...also, I wouldn't think that bacteria growth is that fast on smoked and spice rubbed meat. I don't want to get in trouble with the food police here, but I'm just sayin', and I'm not saying not to use good sense, either.
 
Thanks for all the help. I checked the temp and it was about 135. I put them in a cold oven and put it on low to keep the heat up. The pork turned out great...no complaints.
 
Jon,I cooked 2 butts yesterday. They came off the WSM at 3 PM. I put them,wrapped in foil and covered with a dish towel,in a cooler. I pulled one at 6:30 PM. It was almost too hot to handle! I pulled the other one about 9:30 PM to put up for later. It was also still very hot!
 
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