How long for 60lbs of Pork Butt?

Wow! That is great information, and exactly what I needed. I got the notion that extra time is needed for large amounts of meat on a forum for electric smokers. It makes sense that propane has more flexibility, and can handle the demand by increasing the BTU's. More work takes more energy. Simple physics. Thanks so much to everyone who responded.

You're right, I was basing the timing on my experience with the brick roaster (The Big Pig Rig), which ran hotter and was harder to control. Now I have a new baseline to work from. Especially valuable was the tip about storing the butts in an ice chest. That alone is going to allow me the freedom I need to take my time and work this out to develop the process for the first time. Thanks for that.

The Big Pig Q is the weekend after Labor Day. I intend to practice this weekend with a single butt for family and neighbors so I can get a feel for the meat and bond with the new rig.

Look for pics and a summary in early to mid September.

Thanks again for your quick and most helpful advice! This is a great place. :-)

Dave

Excellent suggestion! That is going to be my very first accessory purchase. The memories of 20 years of manually checking the whole roasting pig every 30 minutes for 12 hours is already starting to fade. :-) The thermometer will pay for itself in the first good nights sleep.

Thanks to all who responded. I am so excited about this now. What was originally just a simple question to get me started is turning in to a very pleasant journey. So much to learn...

Dave

Old School

Thanks for sharing, especially the rules of thumb you offered. I must say that is a beautiful picture! Too bad you can't attach the heavenly aroma that must go with that image.

I noticed you have bone-in shoulders. In my area they offer both boneless and bone-in. Any advantage to bone-in? I had planned to use boneless just for convenience.

Dave

An update.

The Big Pig was a great success this year! Not only did I get way more compliments on the pork than usual, but for the first time in 21 years we actually ran out of buns! I wound up putting out every slice of bread and dinner roll we had to make sandwiches with, and even then folks continued piling the pork on their plates until it was all gone. This was despite a smaller turn out than usual.

Thanks to everyone on this forum who answered my questions, contributed their knowledge, and allowed me to "pull" this off. :-)

Here, in a nutshell, is Big Pig by the numbers

61.9 lbs of pork shoulder, which is

8 bone-in roasts

4 cups of rub

5lbs of hickory chunks

15.5 hours total cook time

Yielded about 40 lbs of pulled pork

120 sandwich buns

2 loaves of sandwich bread

About 10 Tons of Fun

Here it is by the pictures



One case of 4 "Pork Shoulder Butts", cut in half to yield 8 roasts, total weight 61.9 lbs at $1.89/lb



Four roasts waiting for Rub



Aye, there's the rub!



MasterBuilt Extra Large smoker loaded up and ready to rock. Notice cast iron skillet at the bottom holding approx 3 lbs of hickory chunks.



Replenished wood and water after 6 hours and went to bed. Woke up 7 hours later and this is the view of the Maverick ET732 wireless thermometer that greeted me. I love it when a plan comes together. :-)



I gave it another 2.5 hours to hit 190F, then shut off the gas and let them rest for 2 hours. This is the view right before being pulled. Unfortunately, I have no pictures after this as my hands were full for a while and I forgot to designate a photographer. :-(

Thanks again to everyone who contributed. We are already planning a fall rib fest for a few selected friends using the same rub recipe my wife used on the pulled pork.