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Amazing pulled pork, butt a long time a comin

CdnBaconNEgg
CdnBaconNEgg Posts: 10
in EggHead Forum
Hey all!  Hope you've all had a great weekend of BBQ!  I have a question for the forum....  I smoked a pork butt starting Saturday night at 8:30.  It didn't finish until 6:30 last night.  22 hours!!!  I think that's crazy long for a 6lb piece of meat.  I had a grate temp of 210F all night with a DigiQ (great piece of kit!).  I bumped to 250F grate temp for the last 4 hours.  Any thoughts as to what I may be doing wrong??  I did notice the grate temp and dome temp differ by about 30 degrees, so for those smoking at 250F dome temp, it would be 280F grate temp for me.  Is that potentially the problem?

The butt did turn out fantastically moist and juicy.  I thought it was going to be a rock after that amount of time.  The egg has never let me down.

Thanks in advance!!
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Comments

  • Foghorn
    Foghorn Posts: 10,319

    The lower your cooking temp, the longer it will take.  The closer the target temp is to the cooking temp, the longer it will take.  For a butt, your target temp is around 200.  So, at the point that your meat temp is 180, if your grate temp is 210 there is only a 30 degree difference.  If you are cooking at 240, there is a 60 degree difference - so it will cook twice as fast during that part of the cook.

    That's why most of us do our "low and slow" cooks around 250.  I only cook below 250 when I am doing an all-nighter and I want to sleep knowing that it won't overcook before I wake in the morning. 

    It's also why many of us do "turbo" cooks at 350.  To my knowledge, nobody has really defined it but I think 299 is the top end of "low" and 300 is the bottom end of the "turbo" range. 

    On the other hand, if you are cooking a piece of meat that has a lower target temp like a prime rib or a tenderloin where you want to pull it at 125, then a cooking temp of 210 or 220 will be fine and won't take too long because even at the end of the cook, there is about a 100 degree difference.

     

     

     

    XXL BGE, Karebecue, Chargiller Akorn Kamado, Weber Smokey Mountain, Grand Turbo gasser, Weber Smoky Joe, and the wheelbarrow that my grandfather used to cook steaks from his cattle

    San Antonio, TX

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  • henapple
    henapple Posts: 16,025
    Almost sounds like it was in a warmer. I'm sure the stall at that temp had a lot to do with it.
    Green egg, dead animal and alcohol. The "Boro".. TN 
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  • CdnBaconNEgg
    CdnBaconNEgg Posts: 10
    Thanks guys.  As I suspected.  I couldn't think of anything else.  I should really have combed the comments here rather than a google search on temp.  I can't remember the site I pulled it from, but the suggestion was 210 for an overnight cook, so that's what I went with.  I should have bumped the temp to 250 early in the morning when I woke or run at 250 all night.  I only slept 6 hours anyway.  The stall lasted longer than the entire 2nd season of Breaking Bad.

    Lesson learned!!  Thanks for the help!
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  • gdenby
    gdenby Posts: 6,239
    The "stall" or "plateau" is when the meat is staying cool from evaporation. Your grate temp was below the boiling point, so the temp rise was inevitably extremely slow. And, at that temp the stall probably started around 130F, maybe lower. If the grate temp is around 300, the meat doesn't stall much at all. Above 300, some care is needed so the surface of the meat doesn't dessicate. If a totally dry crust forms, the heat won't transfer as well to the interior of the food, and the exterior will eventually char.
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  • jhl192
    jhl192 Posts: 1,006
    I started a 10lb Butt at 10PM on Saturday night at 250 and took it off at 6 PM at 195-200 degrees. .  Last 2 hours at 350.  Very juicy and delicious.  20 hours total. 
    XL BGE; Medium BGE; L BGE 
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  • Foghorn
    Foghorn Posts: 10,319
    CdnBaconNEgg said:

    Thanks guys.  As I suspected.  I couldn't think of anything else.  I should really have combed the comments here rather than a google search on temp.  I can't remember the site I pulled it from, but the suggestion was 210 for an overnight cook, so that's what I went with.  I should have bumped the temp to 250 early in the morning when I woke or run at 250 all night.  I only slept 6 hours anyway.  The stall lasted longer than the entire 2nd season of Breaking Bad.

    Lesson learned!!  Thanks for the help!


    Exactly. The beauty of the egg is the great temp control. You can set it low when you are unavailable or unwilling to monitor it... Sleeping through the night, running errands, at a movie or soccer game, etc. You can crank it up to a higher temp when you are able to monitor it more closely.

    XXL BGE, Karebecue, Chargiller Akorn Kamado, Weber Smokey Mountain, Grand Turbo gasser, Weber Smoky Joe, and the wheelbarrow that my grandfather used to cook steaks from his cattle

    San Antonio, TX

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  • SoCalTim
    SoCalTim Posts: 2,158
    Foghorn said:

    The lower your cooking temp, the longer it will take.  The closer the target temp is to the cooking temp, the longer it will take.  For a butt, your target temp is around 200.  So, at the point that your meat temp is 180, if your grate temp is 210 there is only a 30 degree difference.  If you are cooking at 240, there is a 60 degree difference - so it will cook twice as fast during that part of the cook.

    That's why most of us do our "low and slow" cooks around 250.  I only cook below 250 when I am doing an all-nighter and I want to sleep knowing that it won't overcook before I wake in the morning. 

    It's also why many of us do "turbo" cooks at 350.  To my knowledge, nobody has really defined it but I think 299 is the top end of "low" and 300 is the bottom end of the "turbo" range. 

    On the other hand, if you are cooking a piece of meat that has a lower target temp like a prime rib or a tenderloin where you want to pull it at 125, then a cooking temp of 210 or 220 will be fine and won't take too long because even at the end of the cook, there is about a 100 degree difference.

     

     Thank You! This information is great, I'm a newbie, you've saved me lotsa time in the learning process. Tim

     


    I've slow smoked and eaten so much pork, I'm legally recognized as being part swine - Chatsworth Ca.
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  • CdnBaconNEgg
    CdnBaconNEgg Posts: 10
    Great feedback!  Thanks all.  Love this forum.  There is a lot of experience here.
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