Pork Butt. Room temp or from Fridge to Smoker? And is it more about internal temp than time?

[Brokenhandle]

Looks amazing! You did a great job!

Ryan

 

[smokerjim]

Looks like success, nice job

 

[tpc74]

As per the conversation above. Pork Butt, Complete. I began by taking some notes along the way to help guide me into the next smoke. First off, I got the new Thermo Pro twin temp probes. Amazing technology. I wanted to see the accuracy within the probes compared to the smoker temp that was set when smoking so I performed a "test" smoke with two small chickens to gain a reference. What I had learned is that I wanted the smoker to get to lets say 270F, but after some time, it had a hard time passing up 260F, however, the Thermo Pro temp probe claimed that the ambient temp was 226-228F. That is a large difference.

With that knowledge, I set the probes to inform me when the internal temp hits 165F. And it did. The birds came out amazing with a juicy center, skin was still a bit loose and rubbery but that is probably due to lack of high heat within the smoker. Since I knew my smoker was not going to get high in heat, I did the bold move and did the pork butt overnight.

Pork Butt Details: 1/13/24, Removed the butt from the fridge and let it rest for several hours. Did a small recoat of seasoning. I turned on the smoker and made the set point 270F (it would never get that high). Near 2000hrs placed the butt on the smoker and let it get to work. I took four sets of temperatures just to see the increase and differences for future reference and even plotted it in a chart. When you see the graph there are four different temp plots

1) Ambient probe temp (ceramic end of thermometer)
2) Internal meat temp
3) Smoker temp (what the digital output was showing)
4) Desired smoker temp (what I set the smoker to get to)

As you will see on the graph, even when setting the smoker to get to 270 F, it never did, in fact, the highest it achieved according to the ambient sensor on the probe was 239 F. But what was consistent and nice is that I set the smoker to 270 F and the internal smoker temp was very consistent reading 260-267 F throughout the smoke which was reassuring from the Bradley. Once the internal temp hit 204 F I removed it. All in all the smoke was great and the butt turned out amazing (See photos) for being first one. Total smoke time from time in, to time out was 10.5 hours. I let it rest for 1 hour then wrapped it in foil, followed by a towel, and placed it in the soft cooler for 1.5 hours.

Lessons learned:
(1) Do as much prepping as possible OUTSIDE. This includes seasoning the meat and that jazz.
(2) Use hot water when changing out the water pan to keep the internal temp stable and not dropping it
(3) Move the smoker closer to cell phone range. The smoker app on the phone that came with the probes would frequently disconnect to the phone, but as soon as I came back outside it would reconnect immediately. Still the range was from the device to phone was impressive.
(4) Take all the advice from the pros in the forum. It will lead you to a successful smoke. So thank you all again.

Long post, but hopefully the pics will suffice.

Hey man where did the rest of that pulled pork go?! I only see a little bit. Hahaha

You did great! Just remember to never rush it, and they will all turn out just as good in the future.

Thats my biggest problem is remembering that is better to start early (even with pulled pork) than to be rushed to the finish line. Some of my fam prefers to eat precisely around 5pm, whereas I can wait till 8 or 9 if I have to. My mistake is trying to time it for 5. I should just get it done even if its by noon or 1, because if left in the cooler wrapped in towels it will still be hot as heck by the time I pull it apart.

 

[J_L_Smoker]

Hey man where did the rest of that pulled pork go?! I only see a little bit. Hahaha

You did great! Just remember to never rush it, and they will all turn out just as good in the future.

Thats my biggest problem is remembering that is better to start early (even with pulled pork) than to be rushed to the finish line. Some of my fam prefers to eat precisely around 5pm, whereas I can wait till 8 or 9 if I have to. My mistake is trying to time it for 5. I should just get it done even if its by noon or 1, because if left in the cooler wrapped in towels it will still be hot as heck by the time I pull it apart.

agreed,100%. Yes, even after sitting in the cooler it came out piping hot which was great. Wife and the baby destroyed it for lunch. It was a fun smoke and helped build some confidence and reference on the smoker.

 

[JLeonard]

Great cook! That butt looks great. And a butt is great for learning your cooker. It’s very forgiving being a long cook gives you ample opportunity to see how your cooker does. And the use of the remote probes gives you peace of mind also. Now you’ve set the bar for future butts.

Jim