So I'm hosting an afternoon BBQ for some fellows from work and their wives. Been tasked with doing a pork shoulder and a brisket!(having two big pieces of meat to smoke at once has been a fantasy of mine for a bit now!) I have smoked each individually before following different recipes from the Time Tested and Proven recipes from the forum. I have a couple questions regarding what to expect with having two pieces in at once.
The info
I have a 4 rack Bradley digital
The Pork butt is an 8 lb bone in and the brisket is whole and around 14 lbs.
How much longer of a cook can i expect because of the difference in thermal mass? I would like to be at the FTC stage no latter then 2pm Sunday afternoon so we can eat around 430, so what time would members suggest I start to smoke around on Saturday? I plan to set smoker cabinet temperature to 220.
Secondly, what would peoples rack placement recommendations be? My thought is top rack fat trimmings from both pieces of meat, followed by brisket in 2nd from top and pork on the 3rd rack.
Any info and advice is much appreciated!!!!
It'll take as long as it takes - probably not as long as one at a time but probably longer than the larger of the two if done together. Sounds like I'm being a wiseass but there's really no way to tell.
If you want to be done by a certain time Sunday afternoon, do your cook on Saturday till it's done and reheat on Sunday. It may well be better BBQ on the second day and you won't be under any pressure so you can enjoy your guests instead of sweating out the timing.
I would say to start plenty early. Even if you FTC at noon your meat will still be plenty hot when you take it out around 4 to pull, slice, etc. I personally would probably start it around 2ish on Saturday.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
To expand on Tailfeather's comment a bit, I have FTC'ed pork shoulder for four hours and found it was still so hot that I had trouble pulling it with my bare hands. Finishing your smoke a few hours early will be no problem.