Where did I go wrong?

rprice54 · February 2011

Okay, so I'm admittedly a noob. You guys helped me out big time with some Strip steaks a few weeks ago- now I need a little more assistance.

Tried my first butt yesterday, I tried to start it late last night so it would finish sometime this afternoon when I would be around. It took me a while to get up to 225 after dropping the meat on the rack (I tried to copy the Naked Whiz process and read the other butt recipes on his site and a few recipes here) but before I went to bed, the Egg had been stable at 225 for an hour by midnight, so I thought I was good.

I don't have any of those fancy wireless thermometer units (yet) and so I just tried to have faith the egg would hold steady. I've done ribs a couple of times, at 300 and 250 degrees, and the egg held steady for 4 hours, and some spatchcocked chicken for an hour, so I felt good. I happened to wake up around 3 am and thought I'd take a look at the egg- it was up to 300 degrees. Who knows how long. I shut the vent down a good bit and crawled back in bed. At 7am the egg was at 180 and so was the meat.

I was able to get the egg back up to 225 pretty quick, and the meat followed and hit 200 at the 11 hour mark (7 lb butt). I wrapped it in foil and rested for 30 min before I pulled it. It's edible but a bit dry.

Any thoughts on the sudden climb to 300? It wasn't windy out, I'm guessing that cooked the pig a little too quickly and dried it out.

I'm not getting a fan, just seems like cheating

although I could appreciate it for you competition types out there. I make fun of one of my friends who has the electric-set-and-forget smoker from SAMs (not too much, he makes good ribs). For the cost of the fan I could just get the electric smoker. I do want to try and master the art of this without a computer attached to my egg. I will look into the new Maverick ET72 at some point so I can keep a better eye on things.

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.

FlaPoolman · February 2011

Try holding 250 dome it seems much easier but climbing to 300 is no big deal. I don't consider the power assisted drafts cheating I just call it a better nights sleep.

howmeisterg · February 2011

I have also had that happen where my XL went up to 300, even 320 for some time during the night and the butt turned out fine - not dry. I also do not have a controller.

But I think perhaps finishing at 190 instead of 200 would make a pretty significant difference in moistness.

Big'un · February 2011

Two things I see right out of the gate.

First, cook your pork butt at about 265F, pull at 193F. You will dry the meat out cooking at that low of a temp. It takes forever for the meat to get to temp you can pull at, and that means lost moisture.

Second, once you stabilize your egg at what ever temp, it will always drop because you have added a large amount of thermal mass(cold meat). If your egg was truly stabilized at your temp, it will regain that same temp after it overcomes the thermal mass you added. It will take some time but it will come back to your original temp if you make no other adjustments.

What you were doing is known as "chasing a temp"; by trying to quickly restore the original temp, it gained a hotter temp you adjusted it to, once it overcame the thermal mass. Just be patient and let the egg do it's thing. HTH.
Big'un

rprice54 · February 2011

I thought I'd throw in some pics as well.

Smokin' in the rain:

Burned butt?

Pulled burned butt:

I'll agree on the better night sleep, and I'm not completely opposed to the fans, I just want to learn the "manual" way first... a stick shift if you will.

Do any of you wrap the butt in foil before it's done, like with ribs?

Firetruck · February 2011

i agree w/ others. 250-275 dome is a good temp to relax with. i dont sleep well at 225

thirdeye · February 2011

The temp swing was not an issue. Actually, the temp at the grate is less than the dome reading, so you weren't excessively high by any means. That coupled with the fact that a butt is the most forgiving roast you can cook means we need to look elsewhere for the dryness.

During the cook of large, fatty, whole muscle meats (like a butt) the collagen breaks down and converts to gelatin which makes it not only tender, but juicy. One problem is, you can't rely on temperature alone. You need to cook it tender. Use a probe like an ice pick to monitor tenderness, you can also wiggle the bone to see how it's coming along. It's an excellent indicator of doneness.

The next thing you must plan on is a proper rest. Wrap your butt in foil and place in a cooler with some newspaper for insulation. Butts need at least an hour to settle down after a long cook. Two hours is even better.

Along the lines of a forced draft temp controller, they are a cool tool, but not a rule. You should learn your cooker first.... then invest in one if you want some extra security. Trust me, compared to other cookers out there, all ceramic kamado style cookers are reeeeally easy to operate.

Firetruck · February 2011

i bought a temp control device and still use it sometimes but mostly i adjust my cooking times so im up. i enjoy cooking more el naturael :laugh:

rprice54 · February 2011

Thanks for all the quick replies. Points all taken.

I do think the roast was 'done.' The shoulder bone just pulled clean out (awesome!)

I certainly didn't let it rest long enough.

So if I cook it at 250 or so, how long do you guys usually spend per pound? I was going on 2 hours per pound based on the whiz site.

Jeffersonian · February 2011

You've gotten good advice so far, now here's another bit: Check your thermometer by plunking the probe end in boiling water and reading it after a minute or so. My bet is that's it's off-zero, making your actual cook temp much higher.

FlaPoolman · February 2011

Time is only a guide,, mine always take longer than that while others average 1 1/2 hrs. Cook to temp and twist or probe for tenderness. I mostly pull mine between 195 and 200

srq2625 · February 2011

An ATC is not cheating, at least not to my mind. I like getting a comfortable night's sleep - maybe that's because, over the years, I've had to suffer through a lot of sleepless nights - not related to cooking.

I don't think the 300°F temp did you a lot of harm. Granted, a lower temp would have been better. I think what might have caused you the most problem is the finish temp. I've done a few experiments; enough to characterize the behavior of the pork butts I get. I've pulled the meat off the cooker at 190°F, 192°F, 195°F, and 200°F. The 190°F run was a little too fatty as a finished product - but very juicy. The 200°F was the next one and it was a bit on the dry side, as was the 195°F. I've done three or four cooks finishing at 192°F and have found that this seems to produce the most consistently juicy, but not too fatty, product.

Finally, I always allow the meat to rest at least 30 minutes and as long (so far) as 2 hours. Not seen much difference between these two extremes.

All but the first of my cooks have been at a GRID temperature of 225°F (the first was at 250°F). Cooking times have ranged from 12 hours to as much as 15 hours. Because of the way the egg retains heat, there's not a lot of air flow through the egg. As a result, I've yet to experience a problem from a long cook.

All of the above assumes you have a calibrated thermometer. Calibration is a two step process. First step is to find out at what temperature water boils ON THAT DAY. It will vary a bit from one day to the next, depending on the prevailing ambient air pressure. Check with the National Weather Service web site - you'll get a good and recent value for that. The second step, as has already been posted here, is to stick your thermometer into the boiling water for a not too short period of time - let that thermometer come to equilibrium. Also, try to make sure that the entire sensitive surface area of the probe is submerged and none of it in contact with the cooking vessel.

jurisdoc · February 2011

I'm a newbie too but I'm with srq2625. Pull it a little before 200. Also, I keep a pan below my butts with a little apple cider (some say it helps, some think it doesn't, but it hasn't hurt). And give it a good long while to return to temp after opening the dome or adding anything - like a platesetter, hunk of meat, etc.

And I too cook butts, briskets, etc. at a GRID temp of 225. I'll glance at the dome temp, but not for adjustments. I've seen the dome fluctuate when the Grid stayed the same. So, go get a Maverick. The new ET-732 seems to be a little better than the ET-73 I have from the reviews I've seen.

Wise One · February 2011

You've gotten some good advice but all in all, I don't think you did anything wrong. I'll summarize what the others have said:
1. Check your theromometer to make sure it's close to accurate. I cooked a butt one time that did not seem to cook fast enough even though I held the temperature steady at 240. I finally had to jack it up to 325 just to get done enough to slice. The next day, I looked and the thermometer was reading 150 even though the egg was stone cold (and the outside temperature was about 80). I figured I tried cooking that chunk atr about 180. No wonder I couldn't get it to 185!
2. Try a slightly higher temperature. 240 is much easier than 225 and 250 is easier than 240.
3. Don't use temperature as the sole guide to doneness. Start looking fo rthe other signs when the meat reaches 190.
4. Let it rest. An hour to two hours is recommended.
5. As for wrapping in foil at the end. Yes some people do it - even in competitions. Try it. If you feel the results are better stick with it. If you don't abandon the idea.
6. Best results are gained only through trial and error - but even the errors are pretty tasty.

rprice54 · February 2011

I did calibrate my dome thermometer, my Accurite, and my instant read thermometer all on the same day. The accurite read 210.2 and can't be adjusted either way but it's close.

I'll keep playing with it. It is rewarding that even the errors in trial and error are edible. My second set of ribs came out better than the first, here's to experimenting.

EDIT: saw another post on the 732 with a coupon at Yard and Pool. Thermometer on the way! (This can be an expensive 'hobby' although so far the wife likes that I'm cooking at least half of our meals now...)

AZRP · February 2011

I'm curious about your handle, what does it stand for? -RP

hogaholic · February 2011

You didn't get the egg stabalized.

For 225 on my large BGE it only needs a 1/8-1/4" opening in the bottom grate with the daisy wheel completely covering the chimney and 1/2 way open.

You cooked it too fast and dried it out I think

rprice54 · February 2011

That's the other thing, to get 250 I had to open the grate up about 1.5" and the daisy wheel was all the way open. I think part of the problem was the small pieces of charcoal that came in my Big Green Egg Lump. 90% of the bag was smaller than normal charcoal briquettes. I opened up a bag of Royal Oak yesterday from Walmart and was shocked at the difference, I thought these were from the same place. The royal oak bag has MUCH larger pieces and many more of them. I don't think I had good airflow, I had to open the vents way up- and I started clean- cleaned out the firebox and around it before I started.

So some are saying I cooked it too long, and others too quickly... welcome to the 'art' of cooking I guess.

If it held 225 before I put the meat on, and then held it for an hour once it got back up to temp (took about an hour to get back up), how else would you tell if it's stabilized or not? How long does it take to say "it's stable"? I figured after one hour at the same temp I was good to go. So you guys drop the butt on, when do you decide if the egg is stable or not? how long to get back up to temp?

srq2625 · February 2011

If you had a shock when you opened up the RO you should get yourself a bad of Wicked Good Weekend Warrior. They've changed their processing a bit and the size of the lump is amazing - puts all the RO I've ever gotten to shame!

As for stabalizing your BGE. My experience doing it without a power draft system is limited, but I've done the same think. Last weekend I did some posole without the Stoker. Got the temp to 325°F (dome temp), had it there for about 45 mintues. Put the CIDO on the platesetter and closed it back up again. About 20 minutes later it was at 325°F and held it until I opened up the BGE to stir the stew. Closed it down again and about 5 mintues later it was back to and held the 325°F. The entire cook took about 45 minutes and the temp was beautifully stable for the entire time.

So, based on my very limited experience, I think you pretty much have it figured out.

As for the size of the openings in your draft door and the daisy wheel - I'm guessing you had some issues with the small lump blocking air flow. I know I did when I started up the posole cook and I think my initial problem was with the small stuff that was left over from the pulled pork cook I did the night before. Once I got the air flow going, life was all friendly again.

Where did I go wrong?

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