Pork Butt help

Unknown

I use the "Ward Method" to cook butts and I have a problem. I have done this several times with four 8-9 lbs butts and have got the cooking times and methods down wee. I am cooking for a charity dinner tomorrow evening and my wife bought the butts for me, but the store did not have my usual 8-9 lbs objects of delight. They are in the 4 lbs range. How will affect my cooking times using the "Ward Method", normally I allow about 24hrs to do this right. I do not want them too soon, three to four hours in the cooler seems about as far as I want to go. Has anyone done butts this size and if so what am I looking at in time change. Thanks in advance, I do not want to feed these people inferior pulled pork.

stike

Lonnie Jaycox,
your total cook RATE(hours per pound) should be the same.
the cook TIME will change based on how big the meat is.[p]an 8 pounder at (say) 2 hours per pound will take roughly twice as long as afour pounder. and if you have more than one on there, three four pounders should still take the same amount of time as one four pounder. just don't cram them together. then they start acting like one big pseudo blob of meat.[p]
if they are not all crammed together and touching, then the fact that you have more in there will not affect times very much.[p]if you find it usually takes 2 hours per pound, it'll take about the same. maybe a smidge faster. not faster enough to calculate and count on. at least not in my experience, which is humble.

Groundfish

Lonnie Jaycox,[p]my 5 lb butts go right around 13 hours for 200 internal. thats cooking indirect on a medium with a grate temp bewteen 210 and 250.

stike

Groundfish,
that jives with my experienced times at that temp range, about 2.5 hours per pound, with cuts that are maybe 8 to 10 pounds. good to know.[p]seems that the smaller cut cooks at the same rate.