Water Or Not For Butts?


 
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jeff lowe

TVWBB Super Fan
I am gettting ready to cook for those ravenous fishermen on Sunday and as suggested I will go with at least 20 lbs of butt as I have 17 people committed.

I have always used the water pan when cooking butts but somehow my smoker seems to take forever to get them to internal temperature.

So I am thinking of putting in the original WSM water pan without water in there so maybe speed things up even though I am going to start the cook at 12PM Saturday and serve 24 hours later.

Good idea or bad?
 
Jeff
If you don't want to use water in the pan that's OK but I would go with sand in the pan. You can run 250 to 275? pit temp and it should take 12 to 16 hours. You should end up with good bark, pull them at 195? internal.
I would inject but that's your call.
Jim
 
Jeff,

I've cooked several butts with an empty pan, no water or sand, at 250-260*F measured at the lid, and I like the results. Go for it.

Regards,
Chris
 
Hi Jeff!

If you are doing a 24 hour cook......keep your grate temps around 225?.

NOT, saying 225? is better...it's just that this is the temp I experimented with and had very good results.

Good luck, dude!
 
The hard part for me was waiting for the internal temp to get to 195 deg. I didn't think it would *ever* budge from around 160 degF.

Since it finally pulled so easily, it was definately worth it.

sonnyJ
 
Well, it worked out great. I bought 3 butts. 2 8.5 lbers and one 5 lber. I know this is overkill but that was what they had to sell.

I put the smaller two butts on top, used minion method with half limp and half kingsford. I put one probe in the small butt. NO water in the Waterpan.

Put everything on at 10:30AM then I had to go out for several hours. Came back at 2:00 and found it was about 244 degrees. Lowered the temp and then had to run around again.

Came back at 6:00 and the temp was only 200 degrees, opened the vent a little bit and cooked it 240-250 until about 12:00. The small butt was at 190 so I took it out and put in frig to put back in the smoker to warm up tomorrow.

Put a probe in the larger butt on top and it read 177. Set the vents about halfway and went to bed.

Woke up with temp at 266 or so and the butt at 199. Wrapped up all the butts and closed all the vents and put them back in the smoker.

The bark really came out great on this cook and nothing was dry, it came out great. I think my smoker runs cool so either my thermometer is off or I have a cool running smoker.

Served it with a apple cider/vinegar/chili sauce and the ravenous californian fishermen who were virgins to REAL BBQ could not believe this stuff. These guys are probably used to boiled and grilled ribs!!

Thanks and it just goes to show how forgivng this WSM is. I hardly did anything and didnt woory too much about my temperature ranges.

Enjoy your BBQ.
 
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