Pork butt time

[Ryan Slater]

I'm smoking 4 butts tonight for a friend's daughter's graduation party. I've cooked two butts at a time before but never have done 4. The last cook I did, the 2 were done earlier than I planned ~13 hours. The untrimmed butts are weighing about 36lbs. I'll trim them before smoking. I'm planning on smoking 225-250 water in the pan, how much time do you guys think it will take considering all that meat in the smoker?
Thanks in advance. Ryan

 

[ChuckO]

Assuming that they're each about 9 LBS, and the low humidity we'll have this weekend in sunny kalifornia, I would guess you should start probing for tenderness around hour 10 and be prepared that it could take maybe 13 hours

If you inject or baste, add an hour or more

 

[Brent Cooley]

Other than the initial "cold meat shock" to the temp of the smoker, cook time in my experience isn't affected by the number of butts, but rather their individual size. (ex. 2x10 lb butts takes same cook time as 4x10 lb butts).

For butts especially, I always add an hour or two to expected cook time just to be sure. It's far easier to deal with holding them warm in a cooler then deal with an

 

[Steve Porter]

Yeah, we did 4 butts (about 38lbs) last weekend on an overnight smoke and they turned out great, 13 hours total time, 225 dome temp, ceramic plates in the water pan, no water, load it, set it, forget it. You can't beat the WSM for ease of use. I slept through the first 8 hours of the cook time.