Massive Butt Cook

As usual, I am way behind on the updates, but am going to try to chronicle a butt cook I am doing tonight for a friend’s church dinner tomorrow night.

After a trip to Sam’s this afternoon to pick up a case of butts (five packages of 2 butts each) weighing in at about 72 lbs, plus two more two-packs for a total of 14 butts weighing in at about 100 lbs, the preparations got started in earnest around 9:30. Here is the first post, which was originally sent as an email to The Professor and a couple of the intended beneficiaries of the butt cook:

Gentlemen – as followers of BBQ, Esq., and being aware of a mammoth butt cook this evening, I wanted to let you know that as of 10:15, all butts have been rubbed and are on their respective smokers.

The final count was 14 butts – about 100 pounds total. 10 of the butts fit on the Traeger and 4 on the WSM.

When I came upstairs, the Traeger was humming along at about 225 on Pecan pellets and the WSM was climbing through 190, assisted by the BBQ Guru Digi-Q DX automatic temperature control device, on its way to 225, fueled with good old Kingsford and flavored with some cherry, apple and pecan wood. Both smokers will hang there over night, with a temperature check to coincide with my nightly “nature call” (BBQ is such a good old man’s sport for this reason), and when the butts reach 160 degrees internal temperature – which I estimate to be about 6 – 7 a.m., they will be wrapped in a double layer of heavy duty foil, a little rub and a splash of liquid added to the foil, and the temps will be bumped to about 275. I estimate that the butts will finish at around 198 degrees between 10 a.m. and noon. They will then be transferred to a cooler, wrapped in towels, and held for pick up by my “customer” about 2:45. EXCEPT that two lucky butts will be reserved for the Smith Family and two special friends (Sorry CPS, you’re family and would have a share except that you are headed west).

We are hoping for a slightly sweet, smoky finish with plenty of moisture and a noticeable but not tough nor chewy crust.

More updates later in the evening.

11:00 p.m update. I usually don’t check my cookers so soon after starting a cook, but I really want to get some sleep and I wanted to know that all was well. The Traeger and the WSM were humming right along at temperature, with a wisp of blue smoke coming from the WSM. The Traeger doesn’t produce much noticeable smoke after the pellets get going, but the smoke taste and smoke ring are there nevertheless.  The butts on the Traeger are going to need rotating at the early morning check to keep the outside edges from getting done too fast. No problem there. So, 11:00 p.m. and all is well. The BBQ, Esq. is off for a few hours of smokey dreams.

1:15 a.m. – Butt check. Temps are holding steady on both the Traeger and the WSM. Butts look pretty much like they’re supposed to after about 3 hours.  Checked fuel in the Traeger. Going back to bed.

5:35 a.m. – I really like automatic temperature controllers! They let me do overnight cooks without worrying about smoker temperatures – not that I worry much about temperatures on the Traeger or the WSM anyway (or the Kamado Joe or Primo XL Oval for that mattter), but still, I sleep better knowing that the technology is doing its job.  Got up and checked the butts this morning and they look great. I did get to the Traeger just in time since it was almost out of pellets. I refilled the hopper and now Traeger is happy again and let out a nice little puff of smoke from the smokestack to let me know. I haven’t checked the butt temps yet this morning because the Thermapen was upstairs and the cookers are downstairs, but judging from the looks of the butts, they are definitely ready to go into foil to finish. Butt first…… coffee…..

7:00 a.m. –  When I took the Thermapen down to the smokers, I found that thee of the butts were just north of 195 degrees internal – they all were on the Traeger and on the “hotter” end of the cooker. They were foiled an slipped into a cooler to hold for a while until the others finish. The biggest butts were on the WSM and they were still in the stall, being in the 160 range. No real surprise there because of their size. All of the butts were wrapped and the 11 that still had some cooking to do were returned to their cookers and the cooker temperatures were bumped to 250.

I will check the butts every 30 minutes or so and as the butts finish, they will go into the cooler. When all are finished, I will put the Traeger into “smoke” mode, which runs about 165 degrees, and hold the butts until my “customer” picks them up after lunch.

Final Update: The butts all finished in due course this morning. As they finished up, they were placed in a cooler and covered with a blanket. The last two to come off of the WSM were designated as mine. I pulled them about 1:30 this afternoon and they were good butts to say the least. Lots of moisture, good bark, very tender (these were pulled at about 200 degrees so they probably finished about 205-210, but they didn’t get mushy). I splashed in some vinegar and pepper sauce just to add a little spice and they were done.

First review was from my friend JST. A self-described picky eater, he gave it his seal of approval. Results in from the church also were good, so we’re calling it a success!

14 Butts – biggest cook to date!

So far so good – with only some minor min-cook adjusting.

Closing Out the Old Year….

No. I’m not nursing a hangover this morning – I learned long ago to, as my long-time assistant puts it, “Leave New Year’s Eve to the amateurs.” I relaxed and watched the Texas A&M – Northwestern game (Melissa is an Aggie and Texas A&M is so similar to Auburn that I’ve adopted the University as my second school) and watched Auburn – Virginia in the Chick-Fil-A Bowl (one does not “relax and watch” an Auburn game – Auburn games are only relaxing at the tailgate) and enjoyed the fruits of my day-long “tailgate on my patio.”

I decided that I wanted pulled pork to go with my Hoppin’ John for New Year’s Eve and since I was going to be firing up the Weber Smokey Mountain cooker (“WSM”) anyway, I offered to cook butts for our friends the Cooks and the Rawls.

I didn’t want to come in from our Friday night Sabor Latino festivities and start an overnight cook, so I decided to start early Saturday morning and shoot to have the butts done around 4:00 for dinner that night. That’s always a tricky proposition since butts have a mind of their on, metaphorically speaking, so there was no assurance they would cooperate and be ready by 4:00, but I figured that I had a couple hours cushion before my friends would be sitting down and staring at an empty dinner table.

The cook was a good one, with no surprises – which in and of itself is a bit unusual. I fired up the WSM about 7:00 a.m. with a bag of Stubbs briquettes, Minion-method of starting, clay saucer in foil sitting in the water pan, and the BBQ Guru Nano set at 250 degrees.

The fire was ready, WSM assembled, and meat on by 7:30 and the WSM temp started climbing. The Tru-Tel in the dome was setting steady on 225 but the Guru was seldom puffing into the cooker, so I figured I had a but of a discrepancy between the grate temperature and the dome temperature, due probably to the fact that the three large butts I had put in the smoker had pretty much come right out of the ice chest, were rubbed and tossed on the smoker so the butts were eagerly soaking up the heat rising to the top of the smoker. No problem…. more coffee.

I kept checking the cooker every thirty minutes or so and things stayed pretty steady. The game began. Aggies looking good. Around half-time, I added the Maverick ET-72 to the grate and popped the food probe into the biggest of the butts. Butt temps were just north of 140 and the Guru was holding the WSM temps nice and steady. Time for lunch…..(Hamburgers on one of the Weber kettle grills for Meredith and me – it is a patio tailgate after all).

About 1:30, the Maverick’s food probe told me the butt temp had just crossed 160 so I foiled all three butts in two layers of heavy foil (those of you who think foil is sacrilege, don’t judge) and tossed them back on the WSM. I bumped the Guru temp to 275 and noticed pretty quickly that the cooker temp at the grate and the dome temp were evening out.

About 2:00, friend Andy came over and we engaged in traditional tailgate food and drink, watched some football and I pontificated on BBQ theory, fueled, no doubt by the traditional tailgate drink.

Around 3:30, I checked the temps on the butts and they were getting close, but still no wabba-wabba on the two larger butts. I pulled the smallest of the three – it was designated as “mine” since I was feeding fewer folks than my buddies. We left the other two on for about half an hour, then pulled them, declared them “wabba-wabba”, reveled in the abundance of “pure pork goodness” in the form of the jus that gathered in the bottom of the foil, discussed the best way to use that wonderful elixir, and I prepped the butts for travel back to my friend’s house.

Fast Forward – Auburn wins, friends and family well-fed, Hoppin John a success, in bed by 11:00 (it was New Year’s somewhere – London, or Australia perhaps),and up this morning without lingering and painful recollections of the night before. Age and its accompanying experience does have its benefits.

The butts? Oh, yes – both friends checked in to let me know they BBQ was most enjoyable – one friend in particular declaring in a most exuberant tone that it was the best I had ever cooked – the best he had ever eaten! I would have blushed, but I think he may have been accelerating rapidly toward his New Year’s celebration. In any event, happy friends and family enjoying my BBQ is why I do it and what makes it all worthwhile.

And to all of my friends who may be nursing lingering memories of the night before “HAPPY NEW YEAR!” (I can hear you not – “why are you shouting?)

PFS