Pork Butt - Verticle Square Brinkmann Help

[jomadav]

 I am looking for some help here on times and temps. I have a 7.5 lb pork butt ( already have a rub) and want to smoke it this Saturday. The smoker is pretty new for me, only used 3 times so far. I have trouble keeping the temps down in it - so how many and what type of coals are best? and how long on the butt?

Any pointers are much appreciated.

Josh

 

[njfoses]

Cant help you on your particular smoker.  For the butt it's done when it's done.  You really need to measure the internal temp and when it reaches 200 deg or so it's done.  Time will also depend if you are going to foil or not.  A rough estimate for a 7.5 lb butt would be anywhere from 8-14 hours pending on the temp of the smoker, foil or no foil etc.  Good luck, let us know how it turns out!

 

[roller]

Butts are a tricky piece of meat to try to finish out at a certain time. Your just going to have to do a few to get the hang of them.. I would say that at the proper smoking temp and I like 225* it will take around 12 to 14hrs...

 

[seenred]

Hi Josh.

At a cooker temp of around 250* you can roughly figure on around 1.5 hours per raw pound of butt.  This is only a guess, as each piece of meat tends to have a mind of its own, and I've had them take over 2 hours per lb.  You can speed your cook time up some by cooking at a little higher temps...many will smoke a butt @ 275, even 300*.  You can further speed the time by foiling the butt when its internal temp reaches around 165*; this will help power the meat through the inevitable stall.  Try to allow for what Chef JJ calls "CYA time", an extra hour or 2 just in case it gets stubborn in the stall.  This will allow a longer rest time at the end, which never hurts.

I don't know anything about your smoker...did you say its a charcoal rig?  To lower temps, try starting with less charcoal and build a smaller coal bed.

Good luck, and be sure to let us know how it turns out!

Red

 

[smokinhusker]

Great answers. I'm not familiar with your smoker, but as SeenRed starting with less charcoal would seem right. From previous reading, knowing control the temp with the vents is of some benefit as well. 

Living at a higher altitude, I always figure 2 hrs per lb for butts and brisket - you just never know if and how long that dreaded stall will take.

 

[jomadav]

Thanks everyone. It is a vertical square charcoal 2 door job from Wally World. It works well - too well. I can get it going pretty easily and keep it going. The problem is getting the temp down below 250 and hold it there. I have already changed out the coal pan to a "grilling wok" with holes in it ( maybe the problem- too much air) and filled my water pan with sand covered in foil to add mass to regulate the heat. I'm open to any ideas. The butt is getting rubbed down tonight to sit all day tomorrow.

 

[dirtsailor2003]

Check out this video it may help you out:

 

[dirtsailor2003]

Or this one:

 

[jomadav]

Yup. That's it. I have done the same mod.'s  too except the felt tape - mine doesn't leak too bad. The only thing I can figure is last time I used it I used hardwood charcoal and from what I am hearing that raises your heat. So, this time I am going to try the regular Kingsford blue and white bag charcoal. I think I will go through more of it, but hopefully at a lower overall temp. I also did use the "minion" method - but there I think I over filled it - again with the hardwood charcoal. Any idea on a "briquette" count? My brother has a WSM and his book said 100+ briquettes for his....holy cow that seems like a lot.

So far here's what I've got:

1.5 hrs. per lb. ( 7.67 lbs x 1.5= 11.5 hrs. ballpark )

smoke at 225-250 deg.

@ 140 deg  internal butt is done, take it to 180 for pulled or 190-200 for sliced

....Cole slaw recipie, Miller Light, mowing lawn optional....haha

 

[dirtsailor2003]

Lump does burn hotter. My thought is with that smoker is you need something to diffuse the heat, that is bigger than you water pan. Piece of metal that leaves a 1/2" gap around all the edges.

Some pictures of your setup would help.

Along the lines of charcoal amounts the minion method should work. It's one of the better ways to regulate heat over a long smoke.

 

[jomadav]

Can y

What happened there?

 

[blackshirt]

I have this smoker too. Originally I used the self-adhesive felt tape and it worked great for the first couple of smokes until the tape started falling off.  Then when a couple of pieces were missing it was a complete nightmare to try and control the temp. Only thing I could do was use smaller batches of charcoal and would have to fuel it more often. This spring I got a new batch of the tape and used the RTV silicone to secure it instead of the self-adhesive one and it works perfectly to control the temps again. It might be leaking more than you think. Close the doors and look through the vents while you take a flashlight around the edges of the doors and see how much it is leaking.

 

[jomadav]

Update. I used the Big green egg felt tape and sealed the top door ( improvement? - hard to tell ) and fired it up with some chicken quarters last night. Ran it at 250-260 just fine for 3 hrs. Now today I put the Pork Butt in at 6 am and it went straight to 265-270. So I have it chocked down now to get it to 225-250.

last night I used the Minion method with 25 briquettes in the pan and 25 in the starter. I ended up pulling out 20 later on to drop the temp to control it, then slowly adding them back in to keep it going. Today I started with 25 total = 10 in the pan and 15 in the starter. Started real quick, came up to temp quick , but again temp went high. No wind, air temp 61 , and bottom vents almost closed.

 

[dirtsailor2003]

I smoke my butts in a 265* smoker. If you were pushing 300+ In my mini-WSM For most smokes I use a full chimney of fully lit lump or briquettes and I can run it at temps as low as 200* or as high as ???? My therms only read to 400*. I would try some sort of heat diffuser.