Ten to twelve hour butt help.


 
Jerry N.

Jerry N.

TVWBB Emerald Member
I haven’t done a butt for some time and I’m not up to dealing with a 15+ hour overnight cook. Any good ideas to get it down to around 10 hours? I’d like to wake up early and have the butt for dinner. If I can start it by 5am and eat by 5pm, that would be great. Thinking a ten hour cook and a 2 hour rest.

Thinking about raising the temp but wondering what a good target would be. 300 degrees? Also thinking about foiling after 5 or 6 hours. The butt (just one) is about 8.5lbs. Any ideas to help me with a cooking plan would be appreciated. Would be nice to get a couple of hours of rest in the cooler if possible. TIA.
 
Jerry N. said:
I haven’t done a butt for some time and I’m not up to dealing with a 15+ hour overnight cook. Any good ideas to get it down to around 10 hours? I’d like to wake up early and have the butt for dinner. If I can start it by 5am and eat by 5pm, that would be great. Thinking a ten hour cook and a 2 hour rest.

Thinking about raising the temp but wondering what a good target would be. 300 degrees? Also thinking about foiling after 5 or 6 hours. The butt (just one) is about 8.5lbs. Any ideas to help me with a cooking plan would be appreciated. Would be nice to get a couple of hours of rest in the cooler if possible. TIA.
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After 20 years going low and slow on my WSM bullet and thumbing my nose at the early hot and fast folks, I finally gave it a try. Probably had something to do with yearning for shorter smokes the older I got. Made no difference to me that Myron Mixon has been a hot and fast smoker for a long time. But I really likeTuffy Stone, who's considered a wizard by folks in the bbq competition and restaurant business. When he started talking favorably about hot and fast I paid attention and gave it a try. Basic temp around 300, maybe a tad higher. Family and friends have always liked my butts and baby backs and said they didn't detect any drop off. So I bought a couple of hot and fast BBQ cook books on Amazon by reputable smokers to help me tweak things a little. I really like the change. Folks like the food. And I like shaving several hours off the process.
 
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I'm with DB Jones.... nothing wrong with running hot and fast. You can also find pork butts in different sizes. two 5 pounders cook faster than one 10 pounder and you also get more bark. I've been cooking in the 275 to 300 range for a while, and when you do that, and wrap when the meat begins to stall around 170 ish there is no reason why you can't be done in well under 10 hours. Cooking hot and fast, and being done early with your pork butt resting in a cooler and you sitting on it enjoying a beer 1 or 2 hours before dinner is a beautiful thing.
 
I like to do butts at 350F. I trim them pretty well to reduce grease. Depending on their size, they'll be way under 10 hrs. I use an additonal drip tray and I wrap. Finished to probe tender will be well above the usual 203F you get a 225-250F cook temps.
 
I have never done it and it's probably a crime against the bbq world, but my ex bosses wife did it in a pressure cooker! I'm sure if it was finished in a smoker it would be pretty good.:rolleyes:
 
I must not be getting this.
Maybe I’m just getting old.

Most pork butts I do I get from Costco and are boneless.
They are normally 7-1/2 lbs give or take and maybe one or two that were larger.
I’ve never had a 15 cook with any of them and they were all fine.

I use a Weber kettle but I don’t think that would make any difference.
Would it?

When I first started I was diligent about keeping the temps to 225.
I soon realized it didn’t much matter and was easier to allow a 20 (or so) degree temp swing so I now go 225 to 250 at the most.

I wrap in paper or foil at 160 or so with a spritz of acv when I am liking the bark then probe to tenderness around 203.
Mine usually prone good at 203.

My cook times are about 8 hours.
I can see a couple hours more for a heavier weight.

How are you getting 15 hours of cook time?
 
I'm 80 and I have sworn off overnight cooks. If you cook at 300, and wrap in foil at 165 IT, you should meet your timeline with adequate rest time as long as you don't get a real ornery hunk of meat. At that temp, after you wrap it, monitor your internal temp closely. Sometimes, at that temp and wrapping I can get a brief stall.
 
Andy Kaminski said:
I must not be getting this.
Maybe I’m just getting old.

Most pork butts I do I get from Costco and are boneless.
They are normally 7-1/2 lbs give or take and maybe one or two that were larger.
I’ve never had a 15 cook with any of them and they were all fine.

I use a Weber kettle but I don’t think that would make any difference.
Would it?

When I first started I was diligent about keeping the temps to 225.
I soon realized it didn’t much matter and was easier to allow a 20 (or so) degree temp swing so I now go 225 to 250 at the most.

I wrap in paper or foil at 160 or so with a spritz of acv when I am liking the bark then probe to tenderness around 203.
Mine usually prone good at 203.

My cook times are about 8 hours.
I can see a couple hours more for a heavier weight.

How are you getting 15 hours of cook time?
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You're saying that your pork butts , cooked at 225, only take 1 hr./lb. to cook. I can't get that time at less than 300. At 225, my cooks take almost 2 hrs./lb. It must be the Florida air.
 
Lew Newby said:
You're saying that your pork butts , cooked at 225, only take 1 hr./lb. to cook. I can't get that time at less than 300. At 225, my cooks take almost 2 hrs./lb. It must be the Florida air.
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Yep, that’s how I’ve usually done my pork butts and yes, that’s how they get into the 15 hour length. Low and S L O W . . ., no wrapping.
 
Close.
More closer to 8 hours @ 250 for a 7 pound butt.
I think the weight means a lot.
Our probes might be a bit off but that wouldn’t much matter.
Maybe my spritz steam cooks?
Maybe my memory is shot?
I don’t know but I don’t remember any 15 hour cooks.
That’s a 9pm dinner with no rest time.

My SOP is,
On at about 6 am.
Off at about 2-3pm.
Serve at 4-5 pm.

Now I’m questioning myself.
 
JohnTak said:
I have never done it and it's probably a crime against the bbq world, but my ex bosses wife did it in a pressure cooker! I'm sure if it was finished in a smoker it would be pretty good.:rolleyes:
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Please don’t ever say something like that again. If it’s not a crime, it certainly should be.

In fact, I’m guessing the result is some very soft (mushy), greasy pork. Not inedible but not good. Basically a base for whatever sauce you love. Thankfully I have a bit more time than to have to resort to a pressure cooker or heaven forbid, an InstaPot..
 
Andy Kaminski said:
That’s a 9pm dinner with no rest time.
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With an overnight, I would start around 11pm and things would settle in around midnight. It would finish between noon and 3pm the next day. I’d rest it, pull it and eat around 5 or 6pm. It worked but it was tiring. Especially before I got good at dialing in my WSM.
 
Ah no wrap.
Gotchya.
That actually makes more sense now.
I do add a bit of cider into the wrap too.
Cooking a 8-1/2 butt does take longer too.

BTW, this autocorrect is something else.
I only really seem to have issues here for some reason.
Cooking a 8-1/2 butt kept wanting to call the butt a uterus for some reason :).
 
JohnTak could no longer respect a boss who'd stay married to someone who cooks pork butt in a pressure cooker. So he quit, and joined the French Foreign Legion... his ex boss and assistant manager were left wondering what happened..... the rest is history

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Nothing wrong with temperatures up to 300° and it'll probably cut a couple hours off. Just wrap it once you got bark that you like.

Here's some ribs I cooked at 300 tonight.... About 4 hours flat instead of 6 hours at 270
 

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Jerry N. said:
Please don’t ever say something like that again. If it’s not a crime, it certainly should be.

In fact, I’m guessing the result is some very soft (mushy), greasy pork. Not inedible but not good. Basically a base for whatever sauce you love. Thankfully I have a bit more time than to have to resort to a pressure cooker or heaven forbid, an InstaPot..
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I've cooked pork loin in a crock pot with a bottle of store BBQ sauce and a coke. Cut in half it was likely a 7 or 8 lb loin. Shredded it and it was devoured by kids on the high school swim team or water polo team. It was the first thing gone at the pot luck.

I have no idea how it turned out, because it was gone.
 
DanHoo said:
I've cooked pork loin in a crock pot with a bottle of store BBQ sauce and a coke. Cut in half it was likely a 7 or 8 lb loin. Shredded it and it was devoured by kids on the high school swim team or water polo team. It was the first thing gone at the pot luck.

I have no idea how it turned out, because it was gone.
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I think it would have held up better than a butt, being a loin. Certainly less greasy. Again, I think it’s just a base for the sauce at that point. Doesn’t mean it’s not tasty, but it’s not BBQ.
 
I’ve never done that.
l’ve seen “Sam the Cook Guy” do it.
Most of his cooks are pretty good.
It looked ok I guess.
It’s just not my cup of tea so I go old school instead.
 
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