Bill Thompson
TVWBB Member
I have never had a cook go this way. So I am smoking 6 pork butts about 8lbs each on my wsm 22. The butts were frozen so i moved them to the fridge on Monday night. I believe they were thawed by today. I started the smoker at 7:30 pm. Took the butts out, removed from cryovac, rinsed, trimmed, rubbed. No injection but I did cut the fat out that pretty much splits the butt. When I finished at 9:30 the smoker was at 245. I have a cyberq atc. Put the butts on and the temp dropped as normal. Opened vents and set cyberq damper full open. Could only get the temp to 215. I normally run 235. The temp finally came up at 12:45. The outside of the butts are only at 126. I know the guideline of 40 to 140 within 4 hours. Normally the outside will reach that without a problem but not today. This is for a memorial service for my uncle. My question is...... are they safe to eat when they finish tomorrow? And any ideas what happened? I would assume that the cold water rinse brought them above 40 at 7:30 but I don't know. Thank you for any help.