How long are your butts taking?

[LarryR]

I prefer to cook low and slow so the majority of my butt cooks are done around 225 at the grate. I routinely have Q buddies who do their butts at a similar temperature and they're done in a much shorter time than mine. For instance, I regularly have 8 lb butts go 20 hours. Length of time isn't an issue for me as I prefer long smokes but I was just curious in other KK'ers experiences.

I currently have two 8 lbs butts on and they've been on the cooker almost 17 hours now; one is sitting at 184 the other 174. I've attached my Stokerlog at 16 hours for reference. Note I let my KK come up to temp "naturally" and at about the 15 hour mark I bumped the temp to 235 (got to love doing that from the comfort of my office).

EDIT: Thought I'd add that I'm running 8 lb 14 oz of Rancher on this cook.

EDIT II: Updated with an 22 hour graph, removed one butt @ 19:30 and second at 21:00.

EDIT III: Now that butts are done I'm going for "show" to see how long 8 lb 14 oz of Rancher will burn. Outside temps have been cool, overnight mid 40s daytime high high 50's.

EDIT IV: Ok, this is getting a little ridiculous, 25 hours and she's pegged at 235. May have to pull the plug soon, got a big day tomorrow.

[rick]

All the two pork shoulder cooks I've done take at least 18 hours at 225 for the meat to reach 200 degrees. When cooking four shoulders it takes longer, generally over 22 hours. The last 4 shoulder cook took over 30 hours because my fire went out at the 21 hour mark for about an hour. This was the first time I ever ran out of fuel, when starting with a full basket of lump. I attributed the fuel issue to higher consumption due to the outside temperature dropping to an overnight low of 40 degrees plus it was a little windy. It took 4.5 hours for the meat to climb back to where it previously peaked before the fire died. The entire cook time was just over 30 hours. My StokerLog graphs look very similar to yours.

Rick

[johnnyboy]

I've gone 20+ hours on a single 8lb butt, and I've finished them in shorter time too. I'm not sure exactly why the differences. For me, soon as I can twist a fork in it, it's done.

[LarryR]

I too go to "done" vs. temp; only use temp as a guide as to when to start checking, however, all my cooks seem to go over the 1.5 - 2 hours per lb so I just thought I'd see if others have similar experiences. Again I don't mind the length of the cooks, just checking.

[DennisLinkletter]

The more junk.. i.e. connective tissue is in your butt the longer the cook.
They used to think that the process of the collagen breaking down and being converted to gelatin was actually cooling but it seems that the plateau is just from evaporation.. so once you hit 155-175º you can bring it up to 350º to which will get you to 190º more quickly with the same results.

[LarryR]

Need to take down my Stoker so I stopped the cook at 26 hours. I'll check out how much of the original fuel is left in the morning. Damn impressed.

26 Hour Graph:

[DennisLinkletter]

Gotta get me a Stoker..
Time for a new toy..

[johnnyboy]

Yea, stoker seems very cool; wish I could expand the logs so I can read them a little clearer. Let me guess what I'm reading; Is that 3 probe readings on the chart? Oven temp probe (red line across top), meat 1 probe (black line), and meat 2 probe (black line), target meat temp (blue line)?

LarryR I'm impressed with your analysis but how the heck does one come up with 18lbs 4oz of charcoal to start your test with? Was that the amount remaining in the bag or what?

[LarryR]

Yea, stoker seems very cool; wish I could expand the logs so I can read them a little clearer. Let me guess what I'm reading; Is that 3 probe readings on the chart? Oven temp probe (red line across top), meat 1 probe (black line), and meat 2 probe (black line), target meat temp (blue line)?

LarryR I'm impressed with your analysis but how the heck does one come up with 18lbs 4oz of charcoal to start your test with? Was that the amount remaining in the bag or what?

When saving as a picture and uploading for some reason the graphic becomes compressed, it's very readable on my screen both during the cook and the saved picture. You have three lines, red pit temp, tan (yes believe it or not it's tan) butt one and blue butt two. The vertical blue lines at the bottom represent fan activity.

In terms of measuring fuel, I used a digital kitchen scale and a bowl. As others have pointed out, this does not account for any moisture the fuel picked-up etc., but hey, I'm not NASA, just a fat guy in his backyard doing some BBQ so it's close enough for me.

[primeats]

I cook 3 or 4 butts every Friday nite, at 200-225, most of the time they are done in about 12 to 14 hours, only a couple times have I had to hurry them up inside the oven cause the coals didn't burn properly. This was operator error, not filling the charcoal properly or not making sure the charcoal had sufficiently burned enough to heat soak the KK. A couple of times I was chasing the temps back down,after being distracted and losing track of time and burning all the fuel and reloading(this rarely ends well!). I don't even use my Polder unit at the shop anymore, only the thermapen, pull between 185 and 195, or when the jiggle!

[LarryR]

David, you make a very good point. My cooker is typically cold when I start my cooks and I put my meat on right after I dump my lit coals and close her up and let her come up to temp naturally then turn on my fan once she's at temp. I'm sure this adds additional time on my cook. I'd have to double check this cook but I think it took me about 1:30 to get to temp.

[LATrapp]

I'm glad this topic came up. I'm new to the KK and to low and slow in general.

I've separately cooked two 7-8 lb butts so far. The first for 14 hours and the second for 15 hours. I don't remember the specifics of the first cook, but both were mostly at 225. The meat was put on after the grill had been at temp for an hour.

For the second cook, I forgot that I had turned on the 'ramp' function of the Guru. So, for a couple of hours, the temp dropped to around 215 and then I raised it back to 225.

The meat hit 170 and did not budge for a few hours. I then turned up the KK to 135 and pulled the meat off at 175. It rested in a cooler for about 90mins.

I have to admit that I found the meat somewhat dry and tough. I was surprised but after reading the long cooktimes above I'm actually wondering if it needed more time on the grill rather than less as I had been thinking?

Does anyone wrap theirs in foil for the last couple of hours?

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

[primeats]

The meat has to hit 185-190 in order for the collagen to dissolve. The longer the butts hold at these temps the better. I personally don't foil them anymore, I used to hold them in an insulated cooler with foil and a towel until we were ready to pull them. Cook them a little longer and you'll be happier.

[mguerra]

They need to hit at least 185 before you pull them off the fire. Having pulled one at 175, I can tell you that is a mistake! 185-200 will do. I foil them and wrap in towels and hold in a cooler for anywhere between half an hour to eight hours depending on when I want to eat. Only reason for the foil is to keep the towels a little cleaner. You could probably just stick them in the oven on warm, unfoiled, and that would do, while waiting to serve. But the cooler does not burn any electricity nor gas.

[LATrapp]

Thanks for the tips, I'll adjust. I've got to admit that it's a lot of fun 'practicing' with relatively cheap shoulders that can feed an army!

Another question-

Assuming you don't need to use the grill for other purposes, would you still stick the meat in a cooler to hold/rest or would it be just as good to ramp down and hold it at temp in the KK? I'm totally willing to try both myself and report back, but just wondering if there is a benefit to off-grill holding when it comes to butts.