Pork butt cooking time and temp

[Doug Larsen]

Hi ,
I use an electric smoker and recently did an 8lb pork butt (no bone )
I set it at 225 and it took about 15hrs to get to 195 and it came out perfect.
Now I want to do two 8lb pork butts at the same time.
How does that effect the cooking time ?
I don't think it would double it ?
Would it take about the same amount of time or longer ?
Any advise would be helpful.
Thanks
Doug

 

[kruizer]

Probably will add a little extra time as you are now cooking twice the weight

 

[gmc2003]

Shouldn't add any time really, you may see an increase because one butt may naturally cook quicker then the other. Why 225* you should bump the temp up to 250*. You won't lose any flavor and probably reduce your cooking time by a few hours.

Chirs

 

[mdboatbum]

It'll take your cooker longer to recover as there's twice thermal mass to overcome, so that might add an hour or so.

The stall might be a little longer as you're generating twice the evaporative cooling, so that might add an hour or so.

As gmc2003 said, you may wanna look into raising your temp. I smoke pretty much everything at 300° these days and have enjoyed much shorter cook times, no stalls and no loss in quality. In fact, I find the end product to be better at 300° than at 225°. Your watt burner probably tops out at 275°, but that's still gonna but your time by at least 40%.

 

[hillbillyrkstr]

MD said what I was going to say.

Good luck,
Scott

 

[HalfSmoked]

I see a lot of the guys raising the temperature but I'm old school and still do most everything at 225 and never any higher than 250. so it takes a little longer that's whats it's all about low and slow.

Warren

 

[smokinq13]

If this was a big conventional smoker, I'd say it wont effect time at all but since its a electic smoker, more cold water mass that needs to heat up means more cook time, especially since most electric smokers are usually smaller and more compacted. Pork shoulders and butts have alot of fat content and are extremely forgiving when it comes to cooking... so you can raise the temperture up and still get great results. Personally me i get better results with a temperaure of 275 then 225, more heat equals more bark!

It really comes down to whether you want to wait the extra time or not.

 

[smokinq13]

^^^ i just read what mdboatbum said... he hit it spot on!

 

[SmokinAl]

I totally agree, I used to do butts & brisket at 225, but I've started doing them at 270-280.
Faster, no stall, and just as good or better than 225!
Al