Rescue My Butt!

Buxwheat

Planned on smoking a 7 lb butt for lunch today, aiming for around noon since my son must drive back to college this afternoon. Started up the lump at 7:15 PM last nite, had fire going by 7:30, put the meat on and had dome temp to 200 within 15 min. Polder in place. Sipped and stared at the theromometer for about 45 minutes. Slight adjustments to maintain temp. Ate dinner, watched TV, checked temp Q 30-45 min. Pretty stable. Dipped once or twice, opened vents. Got up to 230 once or twice, closed vents. Went to bed at 1:00 AM w/ dome temp at 220 and meat at 140, figured it wouldn't hurt, and besides, I have woken to a cooler egg in the past. Around 3:30 AM, still awake from when college man lifted the garage door to come home, I decided to go check the meat...maybe help get back to sleep not worrying about it. Damn, down to 160 dome temp! Flung opened all vents fully, fanned the air inlet. Raised temp back to 220, adjusted vents again, seemed pretty sure that temp stable in dome. Meat temp still 140. Went back to bed and slept like a log w/ the assurance that Frat Boy had serendipitously saved the day by waking me up. Meant to get up periodically, but too much sipping and staring must have put me in a coma. Got up at 8:30 AM to find dome temp down to 140, meat temp down to 120. (Explicative deleted) Tried opening vents and fanning, but nothing doing. Ended up removing meat and stone, grill, and relighting some lump in a chimney. Of interest here is that the hickory chunk I put on top before placing the butt in the egg was not even half burnt. Also, almost none of the lump was burned except for an area on the right side of the firebox. Sort of a channeling effect. Coals almost burnt down to grate. I built the fire according to Elder's specs, but I'm wondering if maybe placing all those big chunks at the bottom actually blocked air flow, rather than preventing ash and small chunks from plugging up the grate. Back to the story: Ten minutes later I had the fire up, meat and pizza stone back in place, and dome temp to 300. Bottom vent wide open, Daisy wheel closed, but the vents in it wide open, too. Been like this for 45 min. Wind was up last nite here in Northern Atlanta Burbs. Kicking up more now w/ a few drops of rain. Don't know if weather was a factor for the failure of the fire, but the important thing now is: Can someone Rescue My Butt? What should I do? It has ben my experience that rushing a butt by increasing the temp resulted in a dry, tuff, piece 'o pig. Any suggestions to being able to eat by Noon? Send your suggestions via e-mail and I'll check regularly while I watch this thing try to meet the deadline. Thanx in advance, Buxwheat.

Nature Boy

Buxwheat,
Sorry to hear about your difficulties! Not being negative here, but you might want to start looking at dinnertime instead. Sounds to me like you still have a lot of cooking to do, as your butt has spent little or no time in the plateau. Once you hit 170 you could wrap in foil to finish, and that will speed things up a bit. For next time, try cooking at 250 dome. Easier to maintain, and the meat actually cooks. [p]Now, for lunch....pork chops might be in order?
Sorry for the bad news.
Chris

YB

Nature Boy,
Good advice Chris,
Larry

Unknown

Buxwheat,
Glad to see I am not the only loser when it comes to the cooking of the old butt. Like you, I followed the "guru's" advice to fire building - but I still failed. I've done butts before for 24 hours and briskets for 14-15 hours and never had any problem keeping a steady dome temp. It was real windy last night so I suspect that was part of the problem.

Buxwheat

After reading several posts, I have decided to throw caution to the wind, ignoring most advice, and press on w/ noonish dinner plan. At 10:30 AM meat temp up to 152 w/ dome at 350. Removed meat and wrapped in foil as suggested. Back into egg and temp kicked up to 400. At 11:00 AM, meat internal temp to 160. What temp is the minimum I need to achieve for safe eating? I have already resigned myself to forget about technique, tenderness, and taste (the 3 T's) in exchange for a piece of meat that is. at the very least, edible at worst, but completed on time. Again, I appreciate the input, but I've nothing else to cook, the boy has to leave by 1:30, and I'm determine to finish this thing. By the way, when I removed the butt to wrap it, the forks went into it easily, it was very moist, smelled great, and the the drippings I tasted from the plate I rested it on while wrapping were great. Smell was heavenly, too.

Unknown

Buxwheat,
Well, not sure you will be able to get it ready by noon. The reason for you fire problem!! air holes closed.When you first noticed the heat down, you should have taken a clothes hanger, reached under the grate and opened the air holes.That is what I did this morning. I started two butts last evening around 5:30 pm and my dome would not get below 290 for almost 3 hours. I finally got it stable at 240 and when I got up this morning, it was at 220. The internal had been at 160 to 165 platue for the past 3 hours. They have been cooking for 17 hours and twenty three minutes. I look for the temp to rise anytime to 195 where I will pull them. In your case, I would not be afraid to run the dome to 300. It will not dry out and will taste fine. [p]Jerry

Buxwheat

Thanx again to all for replying. It is now 11:30 and meat temp is 180. I will take it off at 195, leave it foil wrapped as well as in some towels, and place in heated Playmate Cooler. I'll try to remember to photo it and leave and update on how it turned out, despite all the adversity.

TxEgg

I agree...give up on lunch, it's not worth ruining the butt and all the time you've invested.[p]My understanding is you want it to plateau at around 180 for a while to break down the collagen. If you don't do this, it will be edible, but not nearly as good.[p]Good luck!

Buxwheat

Summation: Removed butt from egg when temp reached 195 at 11:45. Wrapped the foil in towels and placed in cooler w/ Polder still attached. At 12:15, temp was up to 200. I took it out and began the pull. Bone pulled out cleanly. We ate at 12:30, boy left for college at 1:00 w/ a full stomach. Not the best butt I've made, but not too dry, and very tender. Neighbor liked it (or at least was gracious enough to say it was good) and no complaints from the family. All in all it was a success considering all the pitfalls and I came away more knowledgeable. Photos included pre and post pull. Check them out on my Weblog. Link follows.

Buxwheat

Whoops, the link didn't show when I submitted. Here it is for those interested in this stuff: http://homepage.mac.com/bfregosi/iblog/index.html