Lid Lift Meat Temp drop; recovery time?


 
Chris in Louisiana

Chris in Louisiana

TVWBB All-Star
I know lifting the lid sets you back on cook time, but I'm curious about how much meat temps usually drop after a lift.

I did pork butts last weekend that were superb.

Lifted lid after 8 hours or so to turn; insert probe to center of one butt; meat was at 176. Lid off maybe 3 minutes.

2 hours later, WSM chugging at 235+ as before, but meat DOWN to 170 (probe in same spot all the way; never touched it).

2.25 MORE hours; meat finally back up to 180.

Took about 4 hours to get back to where it was at time of lift.

Meat continued to climb, and as said turned out great when removed meat at 195 hours later.

WSM was at 240 or so during all this time.

I'm curious if this seems typical for the meat temp to drop so much after the lid lift on a dense cut like pork butt.

I expected the WSM temp to drop off a bit and recover after lid lift, but I was surprised at how much the meat itself was affected by the lift.

Thanks for any comments or experiences on the issue.
 
Hey Chris, I'm glad the butts came out great. While I try not to open the lid unless it's absolutley necessary. I never have a problem with getting my temps. back to my set temps within a few minutes. I think what you were experiencing was a temperature stall.

There's a point where the pork butt will enter a stage several hours into the cook called "plateau". The plateau stage is where the internal temperature of the meat will stall at 150 to 170 degrees and will not rise for a few hours. The fat / collegan is rendering or melting out and the connective tissues in the meat is breaking down to tender meat.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">There's a point where the pork butt will enter a stage several hours into the cook called "plateau". The plateau stage is where the internal temperature of the meat will stall at 150 to 170 degrees and will not rise for a few hours. The fat / collegan is rendering or melting out and the connective tissues in the meat is breaking down to tender meat. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>Precisely. It has nothing to do with lifting the lid.
 
We speculated that it might be that, but had read the pork would hit the plateau at about 160. I guess it can vary. Makes sense.

Thanks for the info.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">We speculated that it might be that, but had read the pork would hit the plateau at about 160. I guess it can vary. Makes sense. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

is your therm calibrated? it could be off.
 
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