Never say never... 5 hour butts


 
T

Tom Ferguson

Banned
I've been BBQin' for a little more than 2 years, a mere neophyte...

Thankfully I first started out with a WSM and gained so much knowledge from this site. I've since purchased a Stump's smoker, which has all the qualities of the WSM, and a bit more capacity.

Recently I've seen several posts on other sites about doing a pork butt in 5 hours. Absolutely ludicrous as far as I was concerned. But I kept seeing it posted.

So this weekend I was going to do 4 butts and a brisket. 2 of the butts were for me & my freezer and 2 were for friends who I ship Q to every couple of months. I decided to break the cook up and do a couple of the butts using the Quick 5 hour method I'd read about.

I cranked the cooker up to 350*, prepped the butts as usual (except I didn't inject). Put the butts on and waited. Sure enough at about 2 hours and 45 minutes, the butts had reached 165 internal. I took them off the smoker, basted with apple juice and double wrapped in foil. Back on the smoker to finish.

I soon noticed that if I didn't reduce the temps in the smoker, the butts would be at 200* in another 45 minutes. So I closed off all intake vents and got the smoker down to 260* fairly quickly.

Roughly 1-1/2 hours later the butts were almost to 210. I was going to take them off at 200* but the time seemed so short I was concerned. At the 2 hour mark after foiling, the butts were at 212*. I took them off, put on another layer of foil, wrapped each in a towel and put in a dry cooler.

1 hour later I took the first butt out and pulled it. It was moist, flavorful, smokey throughout. Downside was that there was less bark than normal. There was still bark, and it was delicious, just less than normal. There was a good smoke ring also. During the first 3 hours, I made sure that there was plenty of smoke wood. I used apple and sugar maple.

I pulled the second butt shortly after. In both butts, the fat & collagen was rendered just like they had cooked for 16 hours.

I was a skeptic, and was prepared to laugh at whoever decided that you could cook a but in 5 hours. Well, I'm a skeptic no longer.

I really don't expect you to believe this, but hope you will take the time to experiment with a couple of butts sometime. How nice it is to know you can cook a butt or two on relatively short notice with no appreciable downside.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Recently I've seen several posts on other sites about doing a pork butt in 5 hours. Absolutely ludicrous as far as I was concerned. But I kept seeing it posted. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sounds great. I'm curious what some of the pro's on the forum would think about it. I'm relatively new as well and have heard the same. However, I have always heard that a pork butt is VERY forgiving. I'm doing 2 butts for the 4th, maybe I'll try a little experiment as well.
 
Tom

That was very interesting and thanks for the post. Was glad to hear you say the fat and other "stuff" seemed to have rendered as it does in the overnight cooks.

I'm going to give it a try. The prospect of being able to have this product in a daytime cook has a lot of appeal to me.

I'm assuming you were cooking in your Stump's.

Paul
 
Yes, Paul, it was on my Stumps. However, I would not hesitate to do this on my WSM either. Just leave the water pan empty.

One thing I didn't mention. In some of the posts that inspired me to try this, one person places his butts in foil pans from the start. This didn't seem like a good option for me. I want that fat dripping out of the meat, not letting the meat sit in it. I still trim the excess fat from the exterior of the butt; not all, but some. Plenty of fat inside.
 
I must say I find this very interesting also. I am going to open a bbq shack for lack of better description, on the weekends. The prospect of doing butts that quickly is very appealing. Now if I could just do brisket and chuck roll with the same speed and quality.

I do have a friend who cooks brisket on his gasser grill in like 5 hours but I haven't got to sample to see if it meets the expectations of a low and slower like myself.
 
Tom,

Thanks for the testimonial. I have been wanting to try this. So about two weeks ago I put on a small bone in shoulder and, being a bit conservative, I cooked it at about 275* for most of the cook. I foiled it at 175* and took it off the smoker at 195*. I didn't spray it with apple juice, however.

The result was a little dry---might have been a lack of fat in the meat. I think if I had added some AJ to the foil and cooked a little longer it would have helped.

I really would like to try a chuck roast this way, however. I like the flavour of pulled beef over the pork but they average 3 hours per pound at 240*.

Has anyone tried the "high and quick" method on chuck roast? What would you spray the roast with as you foiled it?
 
Jeff they had a show on the othe rnight of the food channel. Summer Camp or something like that. Where they go to camp and leran to cook. On of the camp was in Texas. The cook boiled the brisket in seasoned water for like 4.5 hours. Then finished on the grill. It looked like huge brisket from I am used to getting. I will do a search later and see if I can locate the info for you if not go to food network and check there listings. Okay i found it Fantasy Food Camps. Click on food shows and then to Food Network Specials.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/show_sp
 
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