Pork butt on Weber grill, is it ok?


 
D

DavidD

TVWBB Super Fan
A friend tends to skip the smoker as he favors a weber grill via the indirect method. He does not monitor temps, but i suspect they are pretty high even though indirect. He'll start the grill at noon and cook till 7pm, adding kingsford at some point.

How will this meat compare to low/slow?
 
I've cooked butt on my kettle over 20 times (pre WSM) with pretty good success. If you are willing to labor over the temps (which is necessary for the kettle but not the WSM), you can turn out a fantastic product. Again, the main downfall is the work involved compared to the WSM.
 
Yeah, if he doesn't monitor temps, they are probably a little too high. The butt will probably turn out fine, perhaps a little more difficult to pull, but it should taste great.

My kettle tends to hang out in the 300-350 range unless I really make an effort to choke off the vents. I have done a few butts, and prefer to do ribs on my kettle, but I have to check it every 15 minutes. It either wants to clinb to the higher temps, or the coals want to fizzle out. And like Eric says above, it's a very delicate balance compared to the WSM.
 
There's nothing wrong with cooking pork butt on a kettle. Cook them until they hit 185-190. You'll just need to chop it rather than pull or shread it. Before I had a smoker I'd cook them at 300-350 degrees, whatever I could maintain easily that day. They still turn out great with a good smoke flavor.
 
I have done pork shoulder (the picnic actually, not the butt) on my 22.5" Kettle -- pre WSM. Turned out pretty good, but not as good as the ones I've done on the WSM. But pretty good nontheless!

As Jason and Steve mentioned -- it's hard to go lower than 300 degrees in a Kettle. Or at least I have had the same problems.
 
This would be a good use for the Smokenator or the BBQ Baffle. They are each sold to enable low & slow on a kettle. I bought a BBQ Baffle so I could barbecue smaller quanities without firing up the WSM.

I've used my kettle with the BBQ Baffle and got 5 hours at 250-300 without refueling using a Minion start. It works better than advertised.

Jim
 
I just got a kettle yesterday and smoked some chicken today, thinking that the temps will be higher and harder to control. I did an indirect method with one full charcoal chimney to the side and the chicken with a foil pan underneath on the charcoal grate to the other side. The intake vents were half open and the top wide open. Temps started at 410 but then dropped to 350 after 30 minutes. From there it stayed between 325-350 for an hour and a half. I cooked my chicken while it was at that temp. I figure less than a chimney full next time, or close the intakes to 1/4 or 1/3 open.
If I can't get the temps lower, I'm going to look into buying the Smokinator or BBQ Baffle. It sounds like those items can really help with temps.
 
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