Speed Butt

Gandolf

Well, here's how it turned out. Filled the fire box to about halfway up the fire ring with Royal Oak. This is my first bag of Royal Oak and I must say that most of what I've seen so far is very small lump. Smaller than the couple of bags of Cowboy that I've use in a pinch because it's available close to me. Anyway, put three Weber starters in triangle shape and lit'er up. It is so hot in Northern Virginia that I thought about not using any fire, just putting the butts in the egg and setting it in the sun :-). At about 6:30pm egg stabalized at about 230° on goes the usual assortment of hardware and two 7.5 to 8 pound Boston Butts. Remember, I'm trying to save time so that I can do ribs, Cat's of course, for our Q feast this afternoon. However....let temperature setting alone. Got up at 1:30 am and found dome temp at about 260°, both butts within 5° of each other at abut 160°. Butts have now been on about 7 hours, so I increase doome temp to 300° Maintained that temp until 7:30 am when butts, amazingly enough both were at exactly the same 199 degree temp, I took them off as they reached internal of 200°. Bottom line to this L O N G message is that they are perfectly done, very moist and nice crust (I used Elder Ward's rub) and were finished in 13 hours rather than the normal 19 - 20 hours for butts this size.[p]If you need to save time, I would not hesitate to do this again, although I will always prefer the 230 to 240° 19 to 20 hour result. Sorry this is so long - Cat's ribs on at 12:30pm. Ummmmmmm! Have a great 4th!