Does my butt look big in this?

[71-South]

OK, so I got a couple of vacuum sealed butts at Sam's the other day. I pulled them out of the bag tonight and the smaller of the two is now wrapped and basking in the freezer.

Problem is, I had no idea how big the big one was until I slathered it and put some rub on. It's got to be at least 9 pounds.

http://www.fiveoclocksoftware.com/q-pron/bigg-butt.jpg

I don't have enough confidence in my fire skills yet to put it on overnight.

So, do I have any choice but to cook this thing for 16 hours tomorrow?

If you cut a big butt in half, would that ruin it? Is that a way to speed up cooking time?

I'd rather not cook at higher temps, but I guess I will if I have to. I'd like to eat this thing by 7:00 tomorrow night and it's not going to go on until at least 8:00 a.m. (probably more like 9:00 a.m.)

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Bret

[jestridge]

That is a large butt.

[Cliff H.]

Are you smoking it in a UDS ?

If so then it may get done a little faster than on some other kind of smoker. You are going to have to run a little hotter and possibley wrap in foil early so it will push thru the plateau faster.

[71-South]

Hey Cliff,

I'll be smoking it in my large BGE. So do you think cutting it in half and smoking them both at the same time would be a bad idea?

If it is, I guess I'll kick it up to around 275 and foil early (around 140°?).

Thanks,
Bret

[ZBQ]

You can "butterfly" that butt and it will cook faster.

There is an added benefit to butterflying.
More surface for bark!
Removing the fat cap will give you even more bark.

There is a seam of fat that runs diagonal through a butt.

Follow that seam with your knife.

Feel the meat with your hand to figure out where it is since you already have it rubbed.

Yes, it's perfectly fine to "feel your meat with your hands".:wink::lol:

Bone it too.
The bone is T shaped.
Cut it out and it will cook faster yet.

I foil at 160 and at 225-250 my butts average between 8 and 10 hours (non-butterflied) quicker if butterflied. Haven't kept track of time when butterflied. Probably should though.

Never tried foiling early so I have no idea if it would work.

[OSD]

No the pic doesn't make your butt look big, but the butt in the pic is huge!:biggrin:
I would do it like ZBQ suggested. :-D Can't wait to see the final pics.:-D

[thillin]

I do overnighters on my large egg all the time. Pork butts are the best to practice with since they're so forgiving. Fire up the egg about 10 or 11pm and throw the butt on at midnight. Or get up really early and put it on and go back to bed. To eat by 7, I'd want it off the smoker by 4, no later than 5, coolered until 6, and pull at 6:30ish and serve at 7. Therefore, I'd go with putting on the egg no later than midnight.

[Smokin Gator]

Trust your Egg brother... Fill it with lump and some wood chunks to the top of the firebox. Start your fire. Put the plate setter in legs up. Put a drip pan on the plate setter. Put your cooking grate on. Open the bottom vent all the way up and the top all the way open. After about 15 minutes close the bottom to about 1/8 of an inch and the top closed with the butterflies open a little more than half way. Let the temps stabilize for a half hour or so and put that bad boy on!!! Run at a dome temp of 275. You should be able to keep it there with minor adjustments to the butterfly. Figure about 12 hours for that size butt one the Egg. If you are wanting to serve at a certain time figure 14 hours and you can always hold it in a cooler. Take the internal to 170, double wrap in foil, put it back on and take to 195, then cooler for as long as you need to.

If you want any help PM me an I will send you my phone number.

[Crüe-B-Cüe]

Trust your Egg brother... Fill it with lump and some wood chunks to the top of the firebox. Start your fire. Put the plate setter in legs up. Put a drip pan on the plate setter. Put your cooking grate on. Open the bottom vent all the way up and the top all the way open. After about 15 minutes close the bottom to about 1/8 of an inch and the top closed with the butterflies open a little more than half way. Let the temps stabilize for a half hour or so and put that bad boy on!!! Run at a dome temp of 275. You should be able to keep it there with minor adjustments to the butterfly. Figure about 12 hours for that size butt one the Egg. If you are wanting to serve at a certain time figure 14 hours and you can always hold it in a cooler. Take the internal to 170, double wrap in foil, put it back on and take to 195, then cooler for as long as you need to.

If you want any help PM me an I will send you my phone number.

^^^^What he said. I put 2 on totaoling 18 lbs. yesterday. I lit the fire at 5 am, put the butts on at 6:00. I left at 8:00 for my daughters 5th grade graduation, got home at 11:00. I went to work for a couple of hours, got home at 4:00. I pulled them off about 6:30 pm and put them in a cooler for 3 hours. The egg held steady all day. Since I was gone most of the day, I didn't wrap them. First time using cherry also and it was awesome.

[Brauma]

Bret has a big butt. Pass it on.

[71-South]

Bret has a big butt. Pass it on.


Hey now. I can't help it.

I like big butts and I cannot lie
You other brethren can't deny...

Anyway...

[Ron_L]

One of the best pieces of advice I got early on with my Egg was "Trust the Egg". Fire it up with a full load of lump, get it stabilized at your desired temp (if I'm not in a hurry I like 240) and put in the butt. It will take 10 minutes or so to get back to temp so don't fool with the settings. Trust the Egg.

If you don't want to cook overnight then start it early in the morning and cook it hotter. You can do a butt at 300 or 325 just fine. The only difference would be to watch the bark color and foil it when the bark gets to the color that you want.

Good luck and post pics!

[71-South]

Hey All,

Thanks for all the great advice. I've learned a lot in this post.

Now here's the ironic part.

I told my wife that that the pork butt might not be ready by dinner tonight. She said, "I thought you were cooking that for lunches and that we were having ribs tonight."

I'm such an idiot sometimes. I got all caught up in how big the dang thing was and forgot my plan of attack. So, in the end, it'll be OK if it's not done until midnight.

Again, though. Great advice in this thread. I'm going to cook this thing as originally planned (~240° - foil at ~165° -- pull at ~200°). I'll put the ribs on later in the day (planning on using a 3-2-1 "ish" attack on them.)

I'll put the big ole' butt and a couple of fatties on here shortly and take some pictures.

I guess I'm on the short bus today. :)

Thanks,
Bret

[Cliff H.]

There is nothing worse than being under pressure to rush bbq. I am glad you are not going to have to fret over it.

[Cabntmkr1]

Wow! That is a huge butt. Nice score!
Can't wait to see more pictures.:razz:

[71-South]

You're right, Cliff. I went from sort of dreading my day when I thought I had to hit a deadline to really looking forward to it now.

Here's the ginormous butt and a couple of fatties on the BGE. They just went on about 10 minutes ago.

Now I have to help clean the house. DANG!

More to come in a couple of hours.

http://www.fiveoclocksoftware.com/q-pron/big-butt-and-fatties-on-egg1.jpg

[trp1fox]

Lots of great advice, from some real eggheads. Trust them. But worse case scenerio. Finish it in the oven if you have to.

[Smokin Gator]

Watch that back fatty. The back of the Egg seems to cook a little hotter or more convection or something. I always put my plate setter in with one of the legs in the back to kind of deflect the effect.

BTW... you probably won't need the full 3-2-1 or the ribs if they are going on the Egg. Good luck on the cook brother.

[71-South]

Moved the fatties to the sides of the butt earlier (Thanks Gator). Everything seems to be going pretty slow, but I'm OK w/ that. I just took another pic w/ the wife spraying my butt and after that I foiled the fatties. Slow, but satisfying.

We're under a tornado watch until 7:00 p.m. I'll be pissed if a tornado takes my food.

http://www.fiveoclocksoftware.com/q-pron/spraying-at-4-hours.jpg

[JD McGee]

Moved the fatties to the sides of the butt earlier (Thanks Gator). Everything seems to be going pretty slow, but I'm OK w/ that. I just took another pic w/ the wife spraying my butt and after that I foiled the fatties. Slow, but satisfying.

We're under a tornado watch until 7:00 p.m. I'll be pissed if a tornado takes my food.

http://www.fiveoclocksoftware.com/q-pron/spraying-at-4-hours.jpg

Lookin' good bro...let's hope the twisters stay up in the clouds! :icon_shock1:

[71-South]

So far, so good. Some rain but nothing heavy or scary. I put the baby backs on (and pulled the fatties) a little over an hour ago. One of the two fatties has disappeared already. The other is in the fridge.

The butt is cruising along at 140°. The fire is running a little cool (210°). I'll try to get the temp up a bit and check the butt in an hour. More later...

http://www.fiveoclocksoftware.com/q-pron/9-lb-butt-and-baby-backs-6-hour-mark.jpg

[frognot]

Yep, that's a big ole butt!

One of the two fatties has disappeared already.

That's why you always gotta do a minimum of two. Three (or more) is better.

[CrimsonSmoke]

(song mod) I like big butts I can not lie. You other brothers can't deny. Hmmmm it all looks good to me.

[Just Pulin' Pork]

Bret those are looking YUMMY!!!!!!!!

[Just Pulin' Pork]

I will also predict Bret will be competing by sometime next year! We work together and talk BBQ all day! Don't let him fool you he is HOOKED!!!!!!!

[71-South]

Thanks! I just pulled the ribs from the foil (saving about a cup of juice that I'm going to add to the pulled pork), sauced them up, and put them back on the smoker. Here's a pic of them.

http://www.fiveoclocksoftware.com/q-pron/ribs-sauce-on-back-in-cooker.jpg

And here's my pork buttock right before I wrapped it (a few degrees early).

http://www.fiveoclocksoftware.com/q-pron/wrapping-9-lb-butt-now.gif.jpg

I'm getting hungry. More later...

[71-South]

I will also predict Bret will be competing by sometime next year! We work together and talk BBQ all day! Don't let him fool you he is HOOKED!!!!!!!


True. I'm hooked. I don't want to give up golf, though. :)

[71-South]

If you want any help PM me an I will send you my phone number.

By the way. Thanks for the offer, Gator. I appreciate it and I'll probably take you up on it in the future.

I can imagine it now. "BBQ Technical Support, this is Smokin Gator, how can I save your butt today?"

[71-South]

OK, finally done. I realized today that a lot of "getting better" is learning to better manage your time during a day full of BBQing. Obviously, it would be great to just sit on the deck drinking all day, but realistically, (I have three kids - 7, 3, and 1) stuff has to get done. My plan today was to take a trailer of crap to the dump (free city-wide dump today), mow the yard, and help work on the house (that's totally out of control).

I didn't mow the yard. I didn't take the trailer load of crap to the dump.

Basically, I did one load of laundry and kept up w/ my BBQ dishes. That's ALL DAY. I really hope that I'm right and I get better at managing my BBQ time.

Anyway, here are the last few pics from my cook today. Overall, I'm very pleased.

In my grilling/BBQ class last month, our teacher showed us this method of doing corn on the cob. I'm sure it's probably been discussed around here, but I figure it's worth mentioning.

Dilute a sweet Q sauce (I use KC Masterpiece) 50/50 with water and seal it up in foil with the corn. Smoke/roast until done. Mmmmmm...

http://www.fiveoclocksoftware.com/q-pron/corn-ready-to-smoke.jpg

The ribs were spectacular when they came off the smoker, but the whole family wasn't here yet, so I kept them warm in the oven in a pan of water. Next time I'll eat them much earlier. Still, I think they look pretty decent (garnashed with what's left of two fatties :)

http://www.fiveoclocksoftware.com/q-pron/ribs-ready-to-eat.jpg

The big arse butt was worth the wait. It fell apart in my hand when I transfered it to the cutting board. I had to piece it back together like a jigsaw puzzle for this picture.

http://www.fiveoclocksoftware.com/q-pron/butt-ready-to-pull.jpg

Finally I pulled it. After eating ribs and corn, I didn't sample a lot. But I did sample enough to know that it's really good. I skimmed the fat off of the apple juice based drippings, heated it back up a bit, and poured it over the meat. Then I tossed in some more rub.

Here's the final product:

http://www.fiveoclocksoftware.com/q-pron/butt-ready-to-eat.jpg

It was a great learning day for me. Thanks for all of the comments and suggestions. I'm freakin' beat, though. Buenos Nachos, everyone.

[Azinine]

Great looking eats, first of all.

It'll become less stressful as you get a little experience under your belt. Especially with a superb smoking machine like the BGE. Once you gain confidence that your cooker is super stable it really frees you up, time-wise. I only have a WSM but I'm totally comfortable doing overnight cooks.

[71-South]

Great looking eats, first of all.

Thanks!

It'll become less stressful as you get a little experience under your belt. Especially with a superb smoking machine like the BGE. Once you gain confidence that your cooker is super stable it really frees you up, time-wise. I only have a WSM but I'm totally comfortable doing overnight cooks.

Thanks again. I'm counting on that. I had a good time today, but it seemed like a whole lot of work. I must have checked the thermometer 50 times throughout the day. "duh... still at 240. Good deal." :) I'm looking forward to it getting easier.

[McClung]

Alrighty, that came out looking real good. Now, it's time to trust the in the force Luke and overnight. It's a lot less worrisome after the first time.

[fnnm358]

Now that looks real good

Any left overs if so send out some care packages

[jed]

That some awsome butt. Those ribs looked great too. I've just got learn to cook like you guys.