Hey guys..for those of you that know me, know I've been smoking for a while now, and have pork butts, brisket, ribs, chicken pretty much down pat...but last nights smoke has got me stumped.
I just got a Kamado/BGE type cooker a few days ago..and this was my second smoke on it. I brought the Kamado up slowly to 235F and then put on a dry rubbed 3.2lb pork butt (yeah just a small guy) this was at 3:30pm....I figured the butt would hit 200F around 11pm or so, maybe a bit later if it stalled out during the cook.
Sure enough about 7:30pm...the butt hit 164F....and sat there and slowly worked it's way up to 168F over the next 2.5 hours. Smoker temp still at 235F. Finally started to climb again and reached a temp of 188F about 12:30am.........since it was only 12F outside temp, my Kamado was starting to actually cool down with my vents closed down so far..so I opened them up, as my temp had dropped to about 218F in the cooker..so I got it back up to 240F and decided to set the alarm on my ET732 and go to bed, and have the beeper go off when the pork butt hit 200F
Well I wake up at 4am this morning and my ET-732 STILL only was reading 196F..what the hell????? this little pork butt has now been on the smoker over 12 hours....my charcoal was getting cool again, so I brought the butt into the house wrapped it in a towl and put it in the oven to rest, and call it good. the outside of the pork butt has an excellent bark on it
But my questions are...why didn't such a small but finish sooner, and NEVER reached 200F in almost 12 hours of cooking at 235-240F
I just can't figure this one out.
Dan
I just got a Kamado/BGE type cooker a few days ago..and this was my second smoke on it. I brought the Kamado up slowly to 235F and then put on a dry rubbed 3.2lb pork butt (yeah just a small guy) this was at 3:30pm....I figured the butt would hit 200F around 11pm or so, maybe a bit later if it stalled out during the cook.
Sure enough about 7:30pm...the butt hit 164F....and sat there and slowly worked it's way up to 168F over the next 2.5 hours. Smoker temp still at 235F. Finally started to climb again and reached a temp of 188F about 12:30am.........since it was only 12F outside temp, my Kamado was starting to actually cool down with my vents closed down so far..so I opened them up, as my temp had dropped to about 218F in the cooker..so I got it back up to 240F and decided to set the alarm on my ET732 and go to bed, and have the beeper go off when the pork butt hit 200F
Well I wake up at 4am this morning and my ET-732 STILL only was reading 196F..what the hell????? this little pork butt has now been on the smoker over 12 hours....my charcoal was getting cool again, so I brought the butt into the house wrapped it in a towl and put it in the oven to rest, and call it good. the outside of the pork butt has an excellent bark on it
But my questions are...why didn't such a small but finish sooner, and NEVER reached 200F in almost 12 hours of cooking at 235-240F
I just can't figure this one out.
Dan