Butt Sling for Grate-Free Pork Butts in Drum Smokers

[thirdeye]

Solid stainless wire would definitely work and you sure can't beat the price/ft, but I think it would be a bit more fiddly. I like that chain is more flexible, and has the nice feature of built in size adjustment to accommodate the slack in different size pieces of meat. You might want a bit more slack to accommodate a big 10lb pork butt, but you might want to raise it up a bit for a little 3 pounder. In all cases, you want the pyramid of chain in contact with the meat squeezing it a bit to keep it pinned into place, which is easy to do with a 10 pounder, but would require some adjustment with a 3 pounder. I cook everything in between so I'm keen on adjustability.

Put differently, damn near anything would work, but the cats meow for me would be a small stainless steel chain that will be a breeze to keep clean, will last forever, adjust easily, and will look spiffy out tailgating. :-D

Thanks for posting the link to that small diameter grate, now to add that to the idea board for future reference. :biggrin1:

After reading your intentions for using the grate it dawned on me that the spacing in my current hanging rack won't allow something that diameter to fit between my bars (I have 3 hanger bars not two), so hopefully your drum has a wider gap between the hanger bars. Also my bars are fixed on a ring so I can spin the entire hanger rack during the cook, I don't have the PBC rebar kind of set-up.

Couple points to consider... a couple of lengths of the SS wire will bind a butt to the small grate with no problem. But I'm thinking there won't be much difference when cooking on a suspended grate verses cooking on the standard grate (unless you wanted to hang 3 or 4 racks of ribs in the last 4 hours of a hanging butt cook).

 

[Pig_Farmer]

The one thing I can't figure out is what to hang it on... :sad:

The thing I don't like about braided stainless cable is that it's a bit tricky to keep clean. If you've ever cleaned the cable on a thermo probe, you know what I mean. There's just so much surface area and so many places for grime and grit to hide. The cable is dishwasher safe, so that helps a ton, but it'd be nice to have something that stayed nice and shiny without a lot of fuss.

I'd like to use a lightweight stainless steel chain but I'm having a hard time finding something lightweight and inexpensive. Stainless jack chain would fit the bill, but the smallest quantity I can find to order is 50'. Most of the other stainless chain I've been finding is massive with a price tag to match.

Anybody know a good source for small, lightweight, stainless steel chain? Preferably, it would be unsoldered, because it'll probably be coming from China, and they might be using a combo of lead/mercury/unobtanium in the solder, and that wouldn't be so great at 350 degrees in contact with food. It only needs to hold a few pounds so even 1mm would probably do the job.

Have you tried McMaster-Carr.com? Just type chain in the search. They have tons of different chains at different length.

 

[smoke ninja]

The one thing I can't figure out is what to hang it on... :sad:

The thing I don't like about braided stainless cable is that it's a bit tricky to keep clean. If you've ever cleaned the cable on a thermo probe, you know what I mean. There's just so much surface area and so many places for grime and grit to hide. The cable is dishwasher safe, so that helps a ton, but it'd be nice to have something that stayed nice and shiny without a lot of fuss.

I'd like to use a lightweight stainless steel chain but I'm having a hard time finding something lightweight and inexpensive. Stainless jack chain would fit the bill, but the smallest quantity I can find to order is 50'. Most of the other stainless chain I've been finding is massive with a price tag to match.

Anybody know a good source for small, lightweight, stainless steel chain? Preferably, it would be unsoldered, because it'll probably be coming from China, and they might be using a combo of lead/mercury/unobtanium in the solder, and that wouldn't be so great at 350 degrees in contact with food. It only needs to hold a few pounds so even 1mm would probably do the job.

Fwismoker has used a sonic cleaner to deep clean octoforks. A few cycles through and good as new. Gets all the nooks and crannies

 

[NY Pork Junkie]

Have you tried McMaster-Carr.com? Just type chain in the search. They have tons of different chains at different length.

LOL. I think I looked everywhere but McMaster-Carr! They're my usual go to whenever Grainger is selling what I'm looking for with a 500% markup so I can't believe I didn't think of them.:grin:

They did indeed have exactly what I was looking for. They sell #12 jack chain in 304SS for $1.36 per foot, and they'll sell lengths as short as 10'. It's a pretty utilitarian non-welded chain with a working load limit of around 20lbs, so it's a good fit for the job and will last a lifetime of dishwasher cycles.

https://www.mcmaster.com/#standard-chain/=19smdcn

Here is a handy size chart they provided to get a sense of scale for the different sizes:

https://www.mcmaster.com/#=19smj93

 

[NY Pork Junkie]

Thanks for posting the link to that small diameter grate, now to add that to the idea board for future reference. :biggrin1:

After reading your intentions for using the grate it dawned on me that the spacing in my current hanging rack won't allow something that diameter to fit between my bars (I have 3 hanger bars not two), so hopefully your drum has a wider gap between the hanger bars. Also my bars are fixed on a ring so I can spin the entire hanger rack during the cook, I don't have the PBC rebar kind of set-up.

Couple points to consider... a couple of lengths of the SS wire will bind a butt to the small grate with no problem. But I'm thinking there won't be much difference when cooking on a suspended grate verses cooking on the standard grate (unless you wanted to hang 3 or 4 racks of ribs in the last 4 hours of a hanging butt cook).

On the The widest clearance is 6.5 inches between the two bars in the center of the PBC. But for practical purposes the clearance is 12" because I pull the rebar to hang stuff and remove stuff anyway. You just push in 1", lift up an 1" and it's out. It's easier that fiddling with meat-hooks while getting a face-full of smoke. Obviously that wouldn't for you since your bars are welded down. How do you hang something big like 10lb pork butt or a Turkey?

I like the idea of having them fixed on a ring that you can rotate! That's really clever. My PBC has a bit of a hot spot right in front of the air-intake vent at the bottom where the coals are always the hottest; the ring would make it easy to rotate the loaded bars. I might have to figure out a ring like yours, but with saddles that the rebars sit on, that prevent them from rolling, but allows for easy in, easy out.

As for your last point, you've hit the nail on the head. The problem I run into is that I never run the PBC without at least 15lbs of meat because it's such a charcoal hog. That usually means at least 3 types of meat, all of them hanging. The only reason I ever have, or ever will use the grate is bring pork butt up from 165 to to ~203. The challenge comes in because whenever I'm cooking pork butt, I'm also cooking ribs/brisket/etc that need to hang, and with the stock PBC setup, I have can hang, or use the grate, but not both.

That gives me the choice of buying a split grate, fabricating my own, or inventing my own non-sensical solution. The third option just seems like more fun! :grin:

 

[NY Pork Junkie]

Fwismoker has used a sonic cleaner to deep clean octoforks. A few cycles through and good as new. Gets all the nooks and crannies

I like that idea a lot. I've always wanted to get one of those anyway. It's amazing how effective they are.

I think I'm going to notice that my wife's jewelry is looking a bit grimy tonight, and helpfully offer to take care of it...:icon_smile_tongue:

 

[NY Pork Junkie]

Well, I found some small stainless steel chain that's perfect for the project. It's about 1/16" thick and 1/4" per link, and should be plenty strong enough. It's the kind of chain you might use to make a "biker wallet chain", which I suppose will fit right in with the rebar and painted trash drum I use for a smoker! :-D

I think this thing is going to work pretty darn well, and look good doing it. I can't wait make it, much less use it. Here are the components for the version 2.0 of the "butt sling". Although now it might be more accurate to call it a "Pork Swing".

 

[NY Pork Junkie]

The UPS man arrived! Here are some pics with a measuring tape and a normal sized beer can for scale. They're exactly what I hoped they would be!

 

[NY Pork Junkie]

I finished the build, and it works great. Definitely a big improvement over the butt-sling :-D