2 butts and MES30 took 24hrs+?!

[zwiller]

8lbs +/- each. First time running that much weight. Turned out fine but did not expect them to take that long. Ran them hot and fast @ 275F and expected 12 maybe 14 hours plus a few more but not twice that. Is that too much for the MES30?

 

[Gary Uk]

I did 2 at weekend on my mes30 took 18 and 21hrs
Seems like its a bit of a lottery with cook times

 

[johnmeyer]

I don't think that doing two at once in the MES should make much difference in cooking time because it has a thermostat that adds more energy to compensate for having a bigger food load in order to keep the oven at the set temperature.

 

[pops6927]

Check your therms.

 

[dwdunlap]

24 hours? That scares me out of doing two at a time!! If I may... what were you using to measure grate temp and what racks held the butts? Rack 1 = bottom.

 

[gmc2003]

It shouldn't matter if it's two butts or one. The only added time will be when you first put the butt's in the smoker and if you take them out at any point of the cook and put them back in, but it shouldn't add that much to the time.

Chris

 

[zwiller]

I didn't think it would matter either but it did. Therm is Maverick and has been verified. Once again, the results were fine but just took forever. Used the MES for grate temp since I ran it side by side a few times with Maverick to confirm it's accurate. Butts were 4 left (top rack) and 3 right (below). Butt that was slightly larger went 3 right nearer heat element. They were offset so that the fat would not drip on each other. I did have to crack her open now and then to refill AMNPS a few times. Maybe that did it but I was cognizant to do it fast. I would imagine loading this dude up like the pictures in the ads would be disaster.

I slept like 3 hours. Was worried it would overcook etc but it didn't at all. Still needed a few hours upon waking. Slept like a baby the following night!

 

[zachd]

AMNPS should smoke for 12 hours you had to fill it twice? Honestly next time if you run the AMNPS out on a pulled pork I wouldn't bother refilling it just let it cook the rest of the way.

You didn't say but did you foil the pork at 160? If not try doing that next time it will speed up your cook time a lot.

As for sleep doesn't your maverick have an alarm you can set when reach a certain temp? Many time do I fall asleep with my Remote sitting on the night stand waiting for it to wake me up.


The last ones I did were like 9.6lbs and 9.8lbs they ran for 22 hours I didn't wrap them as I was at work and wanted them to go long.

 

[zwiller]

Yes, thought about foiling but was going for heavy bark. I also subscribe to logic that meat will still take on smoke at higher temps. That said, I might be under estimating that impact of opening the smoker to add pellets. I had to refill a few times since I thought it would only be another 4 hours... Ok maybe another 4 hours... Kinda weird but it progressed OK at the normal stall range but went really slow from 180F up. Usually it goes pretty fast at that point but it just didn't this time.

Maybe it's the batteries but I need to keep the Maverick pretty close by or it loses connection. Now seeing that 24 hours is not way out of range for 2 butts I will just keep that in mind for the future and plan for it.

 

[TomKnollRFV]

The S. Carolina Style butt I did was mostly at 225f, eventually because rain mighta kicked off, I bumped it up to 250f. That was..a 9 pounder? Not quite sure, forgot to record that bit, but I figure on 20ish hours any time I use my smoker for pork butt. My method is light a full tray of pellets at midnight, go to bed. Even if they burn quick, thats at least 6 hours. Then you can reload the tray..or just feed chips. As long as the heat is on, the food will be safe, so don't panic over the food safety bit.

The first use of my MES 140s I had two meat loaves an 8.3 pound pork butt in, some chuck roast...eggs..Chicken breast, think a whole chicken. That pork butt took the last time, only 14 hours, and I don't think I -ever- raised the temp over 240f. My Kalua pork butt experiment was a smaller one, and I unwrapped it from the banana leaves at 15 hours because it was still only 175-178. <Though it was wrapped in banana leaves>.

Suffice to say, I have determined if people actually plan for me to do pulled pork from my smoker, I'll likely start it 2 days in advance Lol.