Having problem cooking Boston Butt.

Unknown

Need Advice on how to properly cook boston butt.[p]I just got a BGE about 2 weeks ago. I have cooked 2 boston butts and have yet to get one the way I want it. The first time I could not get temp.down and cooked at 300 for about 3 hours. The meat was done but not real tender. The second time I got temp down to 250 and cooked about 6 hours. Still not tender enough. How do you get temp down lower? What am I doing wrong. Please help.

Unknown

Big Boy,
Well, just a couple of thoughts... first off, when you describe your temps, are they at the dome or grill level? Second, have you calibrated your thermometer?[p]My next thought is about the cooking times you mentioned. Did you use a clock as your guide or where you checking the internal temp of the meat to determine when to pull it off? What size butts did you have?[p]Matt.[p]

Puj

Big Boy,[p]Patience, patience, patience. Looks like you maintain a very acceptable dome temp (250°F), but you need to let that puppy cook for a lot longer period of time. You are shooting for an internal butt temp of 200°F, which will take (depending on the size and fat makeup of the butt) in the range of 14 to 20 hours.[p]Puj

Chubby

Big Boy,[p]Patience...Patience "My little Grasshopper"!! No matter what you're cookin' on...you must caress your butt...
with cool,moist smoke(200-250) and form a relationship with your "Porcine Pal"!
Make love to the butt...Grasshopper...then you will experience the true joy only real butt can provide![p]Chubby

Unknown

Big Boy,
Temps and time are simply guides when you BBQ, the average say 7 pound butt cooked at 250º will take on average 14 to 18 hours cooked indirect. The test to see if it is done is to check for tenderness.
Jim

Unknown

Big Boy,[p]Lots of things could be going wrong. You're right that you probably aren't cooking low and slow enough. I try for 200-225 for butt, except towards the end when I let things rise.[p]1) Seals - bad seals would let too much air in. It's a brand new egg, so unless you scortched them with a run away high temperature cook, like me, they're probably OK. ( Crunched the seals, but boy did that clean out the BGE! )[p]2) Egg not seated properly. If the top doesn't fit smoothly with the bottom, then you could get air leakage. Any smoke coming out from between the top and bottom? If so, loosen the top band and let the dome reseat itself. Tighten thoroughly and carefully.[p]3) How are you lighting the lump? For high temperature cooks, I'll either use a starter cube below the fire grate or light using the MAPP gas trick starting the lump in several different places. For low temperature, I'll use a single starter cube on top of the lump and let it smolder on down. It's a lot easier to throttle a fire up than it is to throttle it back down. If you get the fire going too quickly, it'll be a problem.[p]4) Are you cooking direct or indirect? Check out GFW's or Tim M's web site. I put in a link to GFW's site, you can get to Tim M's site from there. Great info. Those two sites are my first resort when things go wrong. I use firebricks and a drip pan for indirect cooking when I do a Butt.[p]It would be helpful if you could post a few details about your cooking setup.[p]Finally, hang in there. It took me a few cooks, and a few cases of really dry meat, to figure out temperature control, especially for low and slow. The skill will come, and let me know if you want my recipe for carbon burgers. The secret is leaving the dome cap off when you dwell.[p]

[ul][li]GFW's site.[/ul]

Unknown

Typo in the URL. Sorry about any confusion[p]
[ul][li]GFW's site - corrected[/ul]

Unknown

Big Boy,
Sounds like your not cooking the meat long enough. I try for 8 to 10 lb butts that usually go for 20 hours. You have to give that piece of meat a chance to break down to be real tender. Remember, low and slow at about 225-250 around 2 to 2.5 hours per lb. When the bone pulls out very easy its done.

Unknown

Kevin Nolish,[p]There is no smoke escaping through the seal. I have the butt on a v-rack with a drip pan under it. I start the fire with a starter cube in the charcoal. I let it get to @300 degrees and then start trying to lower the temp by closing the dampers on both ends. It takes a long time to get the temp lowered. I am scared if I leave the air shut off too long, that the fire will go out completely. What do the firebricks do? Do you think it would do better to do indirect cooking? If so, what method do you use? Thanks for your help.

Unknown

South O,[p]The temp I used is off the BGE thermometer. Yes I have calibrated my thermometer. The butts are @ 5lbs. I used clock and did not check the temp of the meat. What is the best kind of meat thermometer to use? I have the butt on a V-rack with a drip pan. Thanks for your help.

The Naked Whiz

<p />Big Boy,
First of all, you might like to read my web page about my first Boston Butt cook. I've owned my egg for over a year, so I have a fair amount of experience on regulating temperatures, but it was my first overnighter and it turned out well. [p]You should have no problem getting the egg down to 220 degrees or so unless you have let the whole egg heat up to 300. I lit the fire and got it going and then added the plate setter, a drip pan full of water and the butt. The temperature of the egg dropped from 300 to 150 in no time. But like I said, the egg had only been at 300 for a minute or so. Thus, the walls and lid of the egg were not hot yet.[p]The photo is of the butt after 20 hours of cooking and not lifting the lid once during the whole thing. [p]Anyway, you can read my page and see if it helps you any:

[ul][li]The Naked Whiz's First Time (with pulled pork)[/ul]

The Naked Whiz

<p />bigboy,
To know if the butt is done, you need a meat thermometer and make sure the butt reaches 200 degrees or so. Many people use Polder's. It is a thermometer with a probe on a cable. You put the probe in the meat and leave it during the cook. Make sure you wrap the cable in a layer of foil, as this seems to help prevent probes burning up and failing to work. You can see a polder in the photo. You can see the probe just sticking out of the meat in my other post which had the photo of the butt.[p]TNW

Unknown

The Naked Whiz,

Thanks for your advice. I will invest in a polder and a
tray for indirect cooking.

Unknown

The Naked Whiz,

By the way, What is a Plate Setter and where do I get it?

The Naked Whiz

Big Boy,
It is a ceramic tripod that you can get from the BGE company. It can be used to raise a pizza stone up to the opening of the egg, or you can put it in upside down and use it as a ceramic sheild between the fire and the meat.[p]TNW

Citizen Q

Big Boy,
There's your problem right there; don't be scared, shut those vents down, there is still enough air getting in to keep the Egg going for hours, and if you do drop too low, just open em up for a few minutes.[p]I think that alot of new Eggers have that reluctancy to not want to close that draft door past the opening, thinking that not enough air will get in, but when judging "open 1/4 inch", you should be open 1/4 inch from the completely closed position, NOT 1/4 inch of the ceramic opening visible.[p]I'm doing a 4 pound veal breast right now thats been on since 11:30 last night, aiming for 200 dome temp. When my wife left for work at 7:30 this morning, she woke me to tell me that the dome was down to 150, I figured I could just close my eyes for a minute, then get up and adjust the Egg. That trick never works, I woke up on my own at about 9:40, the Egg was still at 150 and the chest was 128, so I opened up the vents wide for about 5 minutes till the temp started to climb, then closed em back down to level off at 200. The Egg really is that easy and forgiving, but patience is required; if you're Jonesing for a pulled pork sammich right now, you are out of luck, but if you want one 2 days from now, well that's just enough time to get it right. [p]Good Luck and Good Q,
C~Q

Unknown

Citizen Q,[p]Thanks for the advice. I will shut it down next time and not worry about the fire going out.

Judy Mayberry

Citizen Q,
You brought up something that I have been wondering about since I got my Egg several weeks ago. You said, ".... when judging 'open 1/4 inch', you should be open 1/4 inch from the completely closed position, NOT 1/4 inch of the ceramic opening visible."
The dealer assembled the Egg before delivering it to me. I noticed the the vent plate has 1/2" oval adjustment slots for the bolts that attach it to the Egg, and the bolts were tightened in the far right end of the slot. That leaves about 3/16" of ceramic showing at the left edge of the Egg body opening. When I close up the vent door, I stop at 1/4" from the ceramic, not the metal edge with the bent-up flap/stopper along the vent cut-out.[p]When I was at the dealer's recently, I noticed their Egg, which is well used, had the metal vent plate opening set flush with the left edge of the ceramic opening. Does anyone out there know if it is important to have my plate line up with with the left ceramic edge, or just leave it the way it is? And if so, which edge to use as a 1/4" guide?
That would leave a 1/16" opening using the metal vent edge.[p]

Citizen Q

Judy Mayberry,
My door plate is set just about the same, which I think would aid in holding low temps because the air doesn't rush right in on the coals at the slightest opening, it has to work it's way in and around the corner, reducing the volume of air allowed in until you open past the ceramic opening. So, I think you are all set where you're at.[p]Good Q To Ya,
C~Q

Judy Mayberry

Citizen Q,
So it's OK to close the door to 1/4" from the latch, meaning an actual opening of 1/16" will suffice?

Citizen Q

Judy Mayberry,
It's okay to close it down even further than that if you have to, I had such a hot batch of coals going one time that I had to keep the door and the daisy wheel completely closed for the last 9 hours of a 22 hour smoke. I was a bit nervous about losing my fire but every time that I tried to crack the vents, the temp would shoot straight up to 250, so I just left it alone and checked it about every 10 minutes. It held 200 just like that.