A three butt question

tstick

Tonight I am going to smoke three 8-8.5 lb butts. I am going to use an inverted plate setter with a drip pan, grill and 2 butts. Then I'm going to use an extender grill with the remaining butt on that. Planning on a 20-21 hour cook at 225-250. My question is: How much sooner will the one on top get done? Should I wrap it in foil midway through the cook? Thanks for your help. tstick

RhumAndJerk

tstick,
I am assuming that you have a Large BGE. You can rotate the butts a couple of times to help ensure even cooking. Also, if you want to try, you could lean the butts standing together in a triangle to keep everything cooking in a uniform manner.[p]Hope this helps,
RhumAndJerk

JSlot

I've cooked 4 butts three times and there hasn't been a real noticable difference in the times of the butts. They probably averaged 5° difference across the board and never in the same positions. I just put my remote thermo in one of the top butts and then check with my thermapen when the top one is gettin' close to done.[p]Jim

Wise One

tstick, as Rhum and jerk commented, you really don't need the grill extender. You can just pile the three butts together in a pyramid. I have actually piled 5 buts together that way (3 on bottom, 2 on top) and they have all finsihed within a hour of each other. The surprising part is that there appears to be no rhyme or reason as to where the laggard one is, Sometimes it's on top, sometimes in the back, sometimes in front. Go figure.

tstick

Thanks for the posts. I am going to put them on (2 on the bottom and one on top) at 10 pm and take off arounf 5:30 -6:00 pm. I'll put the largest on top. I'll let you know how it comes out.

a stick

tstick,[p]Good call, Dad. I'll be waiting for leftovers.[p]astick