Butts not Great !!!

Ex-Gasman · July 2009

Did the 4 butts on one grid.They were packed like sardines in a can, could hardly get the top closed. Had Digiq set at 230. Fan blew all the time and temp was at 215. Struggled too much with this. I believe there wasn't enough air flow. Now heres the odd part. Thes went for 18 hrs. When internal finally fit 195 I took them off. Wrapped and rested 3 hrs. When pulled 2 of them were almost dried out and crusty. Checked internal temp and never went over 200. Next time I will cook less butt or do it on two grids for better air flow.

Kokeman · July 2009

I have done 4 butts that were 7-8 pounds each on two grids. They cooked for 17 hours and came out great.

I took a grill off my old brinkman smoker and used four 7 inch long stainless steel threaded rods with washers to make a second level. cheap and easy.

Ex-Gasman · July 2009

I have the adj.rig but my drip pan was too deep and could not get two grids to work, need to order the one inch drip pan from Tom.

Kokeman · July 2009

I usually just use heavy duty foil to make drip pans. Just wad it up and through away when it cools no clean up.

Grandpas Grub · July 2009

That is pretty odd when using a q2, the fan running at 100% duty cycle should have told you there is an air flow problem. Do you have the viper (10 cfm) blower?

After that long of a cook the air holes in the grate should not have been blocked, but that is a possibility.

Where was your pit probe? If on the dome the grate would be close to 200° - 220° and that there might be like a heat & hold stage which might dry out the butts.

Now for the dry pulled pork. If you still have any, take 10oz of coke (not diet) and mix it in the pork. If it is still dry add more. Make sure the pork is heated and you should not be able to tell the difference.

GG

Rolling Egg · July 2009

Thats exactly what I do. HD foil into whatever shape you want.

stike · July 2009

sounds like it wasn't indirect

Ex-Gasman · July 2009

Grandpas Grub, yes I do have the viper fan, and the probe was on the grate. Both grate and dome temps were close, dome may have been 5-10 degrees higher. Saturday morning I lifted everything out stirred the coals and added more because I new I would be doing more cooking during the day. The fire finally went up to 250 after resetting the pit temp. Don't think holes were clogged still think I had the dome packed too much.

fishlessman · July 2009

bet you were chasing false dome temps. with all that meat in there its pretty hard to place the thermometer in an area where the cold meat isnt interfering with the readings. first large cook i did i had the vents fully open top and bottom with dome readinggs under 200. looked inside and saw an inferno of molten lump down there and decided to close things up and just cook by feel disregarding those false readings.

Ex-Gasman · July 2009

I believe your right. I had very limited space to put my probe and dome thermo was very close to meat. And like I said the fan ran all the time trying to get the temp up. I think the thermos were too close to the meat. And like you said , one time I opened it up and it looked like all of the coal was burning. Used extremely a lot amount of lump. Oh well its a learning experience.

fishlessman · July 2009

nextime set up for 275/300 stabilized and put the meat in, dont trust anything and leave things alone for the first 4 or 5 hours, then setup the guru and finish it up, bet it will work out better with this size cook. first time i did it i chased temps along time befroe seeing that it was just wrong. with a fan your really chasing temps

Butts not Great !!!

Comments

Categories