Pork Butt on WSM 22


 
J

Jason A

New member
Hey everyone, I'm new to the forum and was looking for a little insight. I recently purchased a 22 inch WSM and have done a few cooks on it (ribs, turkey, etc). This weekend I will be doing a 9.5 lb pork butt, which will be my first on this smoker. I've smoked pork butts before on my old Brinkman smoker, which was a cheap model with no adjustments. As such, it would start out really hot, over 300 degrees, and the total cook time would usually amount to under an hour per pound of meat. From what I gather, using the WSM, I should be looking at 1.5-2 hrs per pound.

Is this accurate? Am I looking at an 14-18 hr window? I'm just trying to get a rough idea of the time so that I will know if I should start cooking it the night before my party. I plan on serving dinner around 6 pm, and with an hour or so rest period for the pork butt, I'm thinking that I should start cooking it the night before....

Any help would be appreciated. Also, do a lot of you wrap your pork butts while it cooks? I've always wrapped it afterwards for an hour or so, but lately I've come across videos and articles suggesting to wrap half way through the cook.
 
Jason, what temp are you targeting? I usually run between 260-280 and a butt that size could be done in 12 hrs. there about, especially if you foil but that's just me.
 
In the 250 range, yes, you are looking at a lengthy cook with a butt that size! However, you are also using one of the best smokers to be able to do this while still getting some sleep! Load your charcoal to the max, make sure you have a full water pan (if you use water), and check both when you get up to check on things. If you can get the temp rock solid (holding my target temp for an hour is what I consider solid), then you can go to sleep knowing the WSM will do it's job as long as it still has fuel and water. If you want to eat at 5pm on Sunday, then you should get this bad boy on the cooker by 8/9pm on Saturday.....this gives you a couple hours leeway if it's really slow. In all likelihood, you'll be done between 1/3p on Sunday, and you can pull it off, double wrap it in foil, throw it in an empty cooler with a bunch of towels, and it will be hotter than your fingers can handle when you go to pull it at feeding time.

Let us know how it goes!!

Rich
 
I smoked by first butt last weekend:
42B1B91B-F470-4B12-8B48-B3823FF206E9.jpg


At 6.75 pounds, it was done in about 8 hours on a WSM 22"

It smoked at 275 for about 5 hours, at which point I foiled it and reduced the heat to about 230 (took a good 45 minutes for the temp to fall that far) for another 3 hours. I dropped the temp mostly because it was going to be done too early. So even with the lowered temp, it was done in just over 1 hour per pound.

After resting for almost three hours (still foiled, in a small cooler with a hot water bottle), it was falling-apart tender and very juicy:
26B0D4AA-7B51-4B11-91A8-6BC1D781ED16.jpg


Good luck, and post pics!
 
I usually cook 6 butts and not less than 4 butts in that weight range. My times are no less then 13hrs with some up to 15hrs. My temps are around 260-290. If planning a specific meal time, I'd plan on 15 hours and if done at 12hrs it will hold for 3hrs wrapped an in a cooler.

To add to this, I don't wrap.
 
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