20 hr butt

Wbawvu

first cook on my new L BGE was a 7.5lb pork butt. Took 20 hrs at 275 degrees. Stayed at 150 degrees for 5 hrs. Seems what too long for me and recipes I have read. Anyone know why?

SoCalTim

Yes, way too long ... the butt probably hit the 'stall' @ 160 .. if you would have wrapped it ... and bumped the temp another 25 to 50 degrees, it's be done alot faster.

How'd it come out?

theyolksonyou

Did you calibrate the thermometer?

Chubbs

I would check either your dome thermometer or however you measured final internal temp of meat. My guess is you were cooking at like 225 dome which is closer to 200 grate level-- well at least for the first large chunk of cook until the two zones equal out 

egghead43

For what it's worth I've had to bump up my first 2 cooks to 300 or so the last couple of hours and the pork has still been great.  I think your temp was off. My dome runs 30 degrees hotter than grate.

Wbawvu

Pork was fantastic!  Dealer said they calibrated the thermometer but I'm going to check it again.  Imagine that has to be the logical reason.  

egghead43

Wbawvu said:

Pork was fantastic!  Dealer said they calibrated the thermometer but I'm going to check it again.  Imagine that has to be the logical reason.  

I'm a new Egger and have only cooked twice.  You need to get something to measure grate temp with for accuracy.  The dome temp isn't what you should base your cook off.  If you do, you need to assume it's about 20-30 degrees hotter than grate.

theyolksonyou

Wbawvu said:

Pork was fantastic!  Dealer said they calibrated the thermometer but I'm going to check it again.  Imagine that has to be the logical reason.  

If you have the retainer clip on the thermometer (not needed, but makes a great spacer in other uses) it's easy to knock the thermometer out of calibration by twisting it. 

Also, no real need to measure grid temp accurately, people have cooked on these things for years with just a dome, if that.  Almost all the instructions, tips, recipes are based on dome. 

Wbawvu

So, dealer said he calibrated the thermometer.  I did it today and it read 265 in boiling water, so I cooked my pork at 225 instead of the reading of 275. Low and slow!  Going to smoke another this week at the real 275.  Thanks for the feedback.  New at this.

buzd504

egghead43 said:

I'm a new Egger and have only cooked twice.  You need to get something to measure grate temp with for accuracy.  The dome temp isn't what you should base your cook off.  If you do, you need to assume it's about 20-30 degrees hotter than grate.

Not true.  Dome temp is sufficient for pretty much all cooks.  Generally speaking, 30-40 degrees in either direction is not going to make a lot of difference (other than cook times) for most cooks.