Crazy cook times... magic butts

Last weekend I did two pork butts and 5 racks of ribs... The pork took forever and STILL didn't finish completely.

Today, I did two pork butts(that were about 1.5lbs bigger each) 34 MOINKs, A Fatty, and 30 ABTs and the pork is at 188 and 184 after less than 8 hours. They're tender as hell (the probe goes in like butter).

That's 6 hours less than my last two. I understand the whole "when it is done, it is done" theory, but this is kinda rediculous. The heat was kept right around the same too. I guess the 4th adds a little magic to the butts.

BluesDaddy said:

Yep, I did a pretty good sized butt (not sure the poundage) and went to check the temp at about 9.5 hours and it was at 205* :shock: Pulled it off and let it rest. It was just this side of mushy. Did a rack of St. Louis cut ribs as well, done at 4 hours - well, a bit overdone as the meet wound up falling off the bone. Of course, wife loved the pulled pork and son-in-law said he had just had baby backs at some restaurant and mine were way better. Still, don't understand the times unless it was the WAY lower humidity.

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Ya know, that might be part of it. Last weekend we were dealing with some really high humidity. Same temps (upper 90's) as this week.

This weekend the humidty wasn't so bad. It was HOT but I didn't dread going outside.

Can a drop in humity from around 90% one weekend to maybe 60-70% take 40% off the end of a cook?