multiple pork butts

RollTideRob

Does it take longer to cook 2 at a time rather than 1?

SGH

RollTideRob said:

Does it take longer to cook 2 at a time rather than 1?

The answer to your question does contain some ambiguity but let me take a shot at it. If you are inquiring about cooking in your oven or on a egg, you will not notice any difference at all. Why? There is not enough meat mass to interfere or severely restrict air flow and radiant heat. Thus they will cook just fine. Now throw those same two roasts in a crockpot stacked on top of each other and what will happen? The cook time will increase dramatically due to very limited heat transfer and poor air circulation. Depending on the cooker in question (especially one that is draft dependent) you can reach a point that it is so loaded down that the the total volume of meat is so high that air flow suffers to the point that YES it will take proportionally longer to cook the full load as opposed to cooking a individual cut. By my best calculations this is usually around the 60% mark of capacity and higher. I'm speaking of the cook chamber capacity only, the firebox volume is totally insignificant and plays no part in the calculation.