Overnight smoke with an electric

[atio]

I found a Boston butt on sale the other day and picked it up, intending on making some pulled port.  It's about 8.5 pounds so I figure it's going to take 17-18 hours to fully cook.  I planned on starting at about midnight and hoping to have it ready for dinner the next day.  The thing I am concerned about right now is it's about the time of year where it's warm during the day and then the temperature drops at night, causing a lot of dew.  I have an MES 30" with the digital controls, so I'm wondering if I need to take this into account and if it can be a problem, what kind of steps can I take to protect my smoker?

The only thing I have come up with is smoke to 160 during the day, starting around 6am, foil and take to 195-200 in the oven, finishing around midnight.  This actually just spawned another question in my head.  After foiling, how do you take the temperature?  Do you stick the probe through the foil then squeeze it around?  Or insert the probe then foil around it?

Thanks in advance!!!

 

[scarbelly]

I just stick the probe thru the foil in a spot where it is at least two layers of foil and I pinch around the probe. 

 

[atomic dog]

Set it and forget it.  Though 160 is a bit low for my tastes, I tend to smoke at 200 as I get better and cleaner smoke from the wood chips, along with hitting 185 internal when done.  You are looking at a good 13 to 15 hours.  Your MES will hold temp don't worry.

 

[smokinhusker]

I just stick the probe thru the foil in a spot where it is at least two layers of foil and I pinch around the probe. 

        

  I have an MES40 and smoke year round here in Colorado. Our temps are in the high 70's now during the day and down to low 40's at night. I just set it and forget it so to speak. I smoke at 240*-250* but I don't foil mine anymore. 

 

[deltadude]

Allow 90 minutes per pound for cook time.  Don't over think dew and ambient temp drops, the MES has good temp control and you can also keep tabs with either a taylor digital probe or my preference is the Maverick 732 with a probe for cook temp and one for meat temp.

200º is minimum for pork butt finish temp, I prefer 205º to make sure as much fat is cooked out as possible.  I just did two 8lb pork shoulders on Saturday, however I only cooked to 200º, because I thought the meat would still cook up to 205º but for some reason it only climbed another 2º.  Most of the fat was cooked but there were some pockets of fat, after pulling the meat apart and removing fat I had a pile about 1 cup +.  Normally I foil at 160-165º and then uncover about 185º to harden the bark a little, but this time I was asleep when those temps were achieved butts were foiled the remainder of the cook.

Note, I used the AMNPS covered (see images) with hickory pellets, smoke lasted about 8-9 hours, with water in pan.  Using the AMNPS and getting sleep is so kewl. 

LL

• deltadude
• Sep 11, 2012

LL

• deltadude
• Sep 11, 2012

 

[atio]

Thanks for the advice all. The butt went on at about 3pm today, a bunch of hours later than I wanted. We are all fighting the beginning-of-the-school-year sickness and it has been brutal this year, so I did not feel like moving the smoker out of the garage until this afternoon :biggrin:

Took a couple tries but I finally got my new AMNPS running correctly and it has been on for almost 6 hours and is up to about 155. I guess I have a few more hours to go.

I'm trying to treat this illness with a few (then a few more) bottles of my first homebrew, so we'll see if/how the pics come out.