Techniques to accelerate butt cooking ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date

 
Status
Not open for further replies.
G

Guest

Guest
After a few successful but lengthy pork butt cooks I would like to take my WSM on the road to the race track. Unfortunately logistics prevent both overnight and 12 hour long cooks.

Does anyone have a technique that would cook three or four 6# butts to 190 degrees in a 10 hour window ? I generally cook at 230-240 at the lid and my typical duration has been 12-14 hours (6-7# butts).

I hesitate to raise the temps much but has anyone had success cooking at 250+ ? I thought about butchering the butt into two sections but don't know if the boneless and bone in sections would cook the same (more bark though !) .

Any thoughts or suggestions greatly appreciated !
 
Rather than trying to rush the job, I would pre-cook, pack into foodsaver bags and warm it up at the race track. Reduced stress, still very good food! Enjoy!
 
Weighing in a bit late, let me address one of your questions. If you're dedicated to cooking and serving all in the same day on your road trip, then yes, you will benefit from whacking those butts into smaller chunks. The cooking time is, basically, dependent upon the size of each piece. Thus, four 6-pound chunks will take (roughly) twice as long as eight 3-pound chunks. (Now, having said that, the smallest I have ever cooked was some four pounds.) There are other factors, such as air flow and bone-in or not; but that's a general rule. You might want to have a trial run at home before hitting the road.
On the other hand, there's a lot to be said for re-warming the pulled pork you cooked yesterday.......

-- Ken
 
Ryan is staying home today and cooking two cases of butts for Saturday tailgater. Last weekend we went through 35-40 lbs of pulled pork at Mississippi State tailgater. We reheat at the game which doesn't take much time at all. Could not do it if we had to do pulled pork on game day.
If we really had our act together we should have put up all the pulled pork during the summer and froze it. 200 lbs of frozen pulled pork might have done it.
 
Ken
I believe you can cut the time some by cutting a butt in half but it won't be half the time, you may gain a couple of hours. The reason is that collagen takes time to break down and as a piece of meat gets smaller the time guidelines become less useful.
Jim
 
Thanks for all of the replies and suggestions !

My situation is somewhat different than a typical tailgater since I will be at the track for an entire week and our cookout will not be until Friday. That means I have to keep the butts or precooked pork in an ice chest for several days.

My original idea was to start the week with the butts frozen and keep them on ice. I hoped that by cook time they would be thawed. If not, of course I would be up creek ! So I'm leaning to the precook/freeze/reheat scenario at this time. Since I'll be cooking several butts I'm going to split one and see how much faster it cooks for future reference.

Thanks again !
 
Jim ---
Thanks for your input. With your experience, I'm certainly not going to argue. In my (limited) experience on my offset, about half the projected time (plus a little) seemed to be a decent rule of thumb. But yeah, the collagen-breakdown factor probably does outweigh the size factor. On the other hand, any given chunk of meat can vary from another of the same size. Thus, these are all just guidelines.
Question for you: What is the impact on time, of injecting a meat? Longer, shorter, no significant difference?
--- Ken
 
Injecting has less impact than the fat content. I find that a Prime brisket will cook faster than a
choice or select.
Jim
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

 

Back
Top