I'm trying an overnight butt smoke on my performer. I'm 3 hours in and just realized I never added a water pan. Do I need it? It's holding temp well using a ring of fire. Is it going to dry out without water?
I knew a guy once that cooked a butt in an electric cookshack and ended up forgetting about it. It cooked for 23 hours at 275 and was only barely on the edge of being dried out.
15 hours and delicious. It was a little dryer than I expected, but that's probably because I screwed up and let the charcoal run out after 12 hours with the butt at 187 and by the time I caught it, my meat temps were already dropping. Only got down to 183, but it took an hour to get them back climbing.