Decided to do a midnight pork butt

CarolinaQ

At halftime of watching my Cavaliers making epic history I needed to distract myself, so I went to the market and got a 9lbs butt. Put on a load of Dizzy Dust and got the egg going while the score kept getting worse. Put it on right at midnight at 230 dome temp.

Woke up this morning and for the first few seconds thought the loss was just a bad dream. Fortunately after I realized it did indeed happen, I also remembered I had a butt going all night. Went out to check it at 7am and the dome temp was resting right at 220 with clean smoke still coming out of the daisy wheel.  Probed the butt and it's still in the 160 degree stall.  Hoping this is a winner, my team sure isn't!

scootr2200

Nice butt! 

I got my Egg going around midnight and put our 11.5 lb shoulder on at 3:30..  I'm sitting at 142* IT currently with a grate temp of 253*.

We shall eat well tonight!

Mickey

GoooDawgs

looks good.   No drip pan though?  

CarolinaQ

scootr2200 said:

Nice butt! 

I got my Egg going around midnight and put our 11.5 lb shoulder on at 3:30..  I'm sitting at 142* IT currently with a grate temp of 253*.

We shall eat well tonight!

Mickey

Sounds like a great timeline. Hoping to be done by noon so I bumped it up to 275 dome temp. Lazy Saturdays are the best. 

GoooDawgs said:

looks good.   No drip pan though?  

I never have used one. Not sure the reason to. The egg keeps plenty of moisture and drippings in a hot pan seem to smoke the same as drippings on a hot platesetter. 

Carolina Q

Put spacers between the platesetter and the drip pan. Keeps it from burning/smoking. Aluminum foil balls work, or three rocks for that matter. No water needed in drip pan.

CarolinaQ

Carolina Q said:

Put spacers between the platesetter and the drip pan. Keeps it from burning/smoking. Aluminum foil balls work, or three rocks for that matter. No water needed in drip pan.

Does that just prevent the grease from steaming, or do something else too? Is the flavor difference noticeable?

Woodchunk

Your smoked butt looks much better than the ones I saw on tv last night. 

CarolinaQ

Woodchunk said:

Your smoked butt looks much better than the ones I saw on tv last night. 

Ha! That was one of the hardest games I've ever watched. I was actually supposed to be front row at it, but the group I watched the early games with all had other things to do at night and I didn't want to be there solo, and have same tix for Sunday so of course assumed I'd see Virginia playing then. Instead I'll be seeing the Retrievers vs. K State.  So painful. 

lousubcap

Protein cook is coming along quite well.  

Regarding the benefits of an air-gapped drip pan here's one that hasn't been mentioned; the pan will keep the grease from finding its way to your lump load.  Trust me when I say that should you ever end up with your L&S fire finding its way to grease soaked lump, things can heat up in a hurry.
I did have a foil lined air-gapped pan but managed to create a channel where a good bit of the renderings found their way to the lump.  After many hours of stability, once the fire got there I had to pull everything out (PSWOO to the rescue) throw in a bunch of ice cubes and get things back under control.  Better to be lucky than good!  FWIW-

CarolinaQ

13 hours in and it's at 195 internal. Going to give it a few more degrees then FTC it for an hour or two before pulling. Used a mix of hickory and apple for smoke, think the bark looks OK. Maybe will add a little sugar next time to the dizzy dust to get it a bit darker.