Should I be worried

JM3

I put three 9 lb. pork butts on my egg last night at 8 PM. The dome temp has not been below 190 and has spend 95% of the time between 225-250 and for the past 5 or 6 hours the temp on two of the has been sitting at 159-163. I have heard of plateuing, but haven't seen anything like this before. I'm already going on 21 hours of cook time. I have never had a pork cook go this looooooong. Thanks in advance for the help and advice.[p]John

Unknown

JM3,
Must be something going around. I posted the same problem yesterday with two 6.5 pounders; ended up being 25.5 hours. I've done more quantity in the past, but the cook never lasted more than 16 hours. Still scratchin' my head.
G.

bigmikej

JM3,
these are the size I normally do and they always take 21-24 hours at 225-230. I usually bump up the temp towards the end of the cook to get them on the table, but never over 300. Kicking it up to 275 or so won't hurt a thing.

Frank the Tank

If you didn't have space between the butts (at least an inch) then it will cook like, dare it say, one big butt. Thus, cooking a lot longer.

Hammer

JM3,
Nothing to worry about. Some cooks take longer than other's. The key is to not get foolish and raise the temps out of sight, or pull before you reach the magic 200 internal. You can do both, but my experience has been that it doesn't pull right, and the results, while good is not as good as they could be.
Patience; Patience! Lo and Slo, just like it says.
Hammer

Joder

JM3,
Sounds normal. It will be excellent!