Sweet Blue VS 130# of pork butt

[spicewine]

Sweet Blue ( My new Med. Spicewine ) has met her match!! I put 16 pork butts ( 130 # total) on her and turned her loose. The stress and temp drain was too much. I fought temps all day, used alot of coal and smoking wood , had her wide open, but it was just too much meat. What would have taken 11 hours on my dual axel, took 15 hours on my Medium.

Got to do this again in 2 weeks and I will be bringing out the big guns.

Just goes to show you, your cookers are only built to do so much.

Spice

[thunter]

Spice,

Is it recommended that you not load the smoker up? I think the med will hold 18 butts - is that a bad thing to do?

[OSD]

Sounds like a case of the pit manufacturer not properly explaining the use and capacity of the new smoker to an overly ambitious new customer.:eek::biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:

[Solidkick]

The Bellys have done this......24 butts on a large at a time......with the amount of mass of meat in the cooker, it absorbs so much of the heat that it is very tough to get to even 200* with using regular charcoal......switching to lump, which produces higher BTUs, will get you where you can be cooking at 225*
Once you get to the point you can foil, then you can switch back to regular charcoal, or you can continue with the lump and finish at around 300*.
It can be done, you just have to change your thinking.....

[thunter]

Ok, this sounds like a science/technology problem with charcoal smokers. There are lots of units that will hold a ton of meat but are only optimal at less than capacity. One of the reasons I like the SW line of smokers is because its capacity is enormous and from what I have heard from a couple of people, it cooks like dream when loaded. I like the lump idea but it sounds like that will only just get you to a 225* range. What if you like to cook at 250* to 275*? What do you SW owners do in these cases? Could it be weather conditions that keep the loaded smoker from reaching higher temps?

[Solidkick]

To be honest, Tony, I don't know the answer as 225* is what I prefer to cook at, so I never tried to push it any higher. What I do remember is that once foiled, the temps really shot up in the cooker.....so I guess without really know if you could get the SW to 250*-275* with 24 butts in it using lump, my easiest solution would be to give the butts 4 hours of smoke, wrap, and take on up to finish at a higher temp.....

Next time I have a huge cook, though, I would be glad to test the principle....

some additional thoughts....

Some sort of air induction such as a guru or stoker would help raise the temp.....I do not have either.....

Pre-heating the cabinet to 275* before inducing the product might be a consideration....

But most of all, DO NOT sacrifice putting water in the waterpan to act as a heat sink. With that much product and that much drippings at that much heat, you are asking for a flash fire....

[WineMaster]

So my question is this,
When the cookers have a hard time getting back to temp because of the meat, Is it running a huge risk of being in the danger zone for too long. 40 to 140?

[spicewine]

Everything turned out fine !! Not to panic anyone, but I am used to cooking on a much larger cooker!! Had I followed my own advice I would not have had any problems. Fortunately for me Fredbird stopped by and managed fire controll while I fixed other things in the kitchen. The cooker did what it was designed to do, I just pushed it out of the comfort zone.

Oh well!!, 100 # of pork butt to go in 2 weeks.

Spice

[smokinbadger]

some additional thoughts....

Some sort of air induction such as a guru or stoker would help raise the temp.....I do not have either.....




This is very true in my experience. I can keep temps up much better on cold days when I am running the Stoker than by relying on natural convection to keep the O2 flowing.

Does anyone use a Stoker or Guru on Spicewine cookers? Just curious...

[Plowboy]

This is very true in my experience. I can keep temps up much better on cold days when I am running the Stoker than by relying on natural convection to keep the O2 flowing.

Does anyone use a Stoker or Guru on Spicewine cookers? Just curious...

Do a search. It is all the rage. :icon_clown

[spicewine]

Spice,

Is it recommended that you not load the smoker up? I think the med will hold 18 butts - is that a bad thing to do?

A true medium would have a maximum capacity of 12 butts. 18 would be pushing it .

[thunter]

A true medium would have a maximum capacity of 12 butts. 18 would be pushing it .

Ok, I was looking at the pics on the website and it looks like you can get 6 butts on each shelf; however, now that I think about it, that would pack it pretty darn tight. I probably need to stop being cheap and consider the large! :-D