New to smoking.

[NePaSmoKer]

Hey New

No need to pre cook your butts or cut your BPS covers. I did a pork butt and ribs in the Florida swamp with my BPS. The BPS works great.













nepas

[Caneyscud]

Newtosmoking - Welcome to the forum. 

Lets look at your 24 pounds of butts.  The cooking time will not be based on your 24 pounds of butts, but on the size of the individual butts - then other factors.  A good rule-of-thumb estimate of cooking time is 1 1/2 to 2 hours of cooking time per pound when the temperature averages 225 or thereabouts.  So if you have 4 - six pound butts, you should expect 9 to 12 hours of cook time at 225.  If you have 2 - four pound and 2 - 8 pound butts then 2 should take between 6 and 8 hours and the bigger ones between 12 and 16 hours.  The Bradley is essentially a low powered oven with a smoke generator designed for low-n-slow cooking.  When you put in a large mass of meat, it takes a while for the heating element to overcome the cool meat and raise the cabinet temperature up to the 225 range.  Therefore, the cook times will probably be closer to the 2 hour per pound range.  On my bigger stickburners, I don't have the same heating variance and my cook times are closer to the one hour per pound range.  I did 8 briskets this weekend on a pretty good sized stickburner (rotisserie)- all in the 11 to 12 pound range, and they started coming off in 10 hours, and the last came off at 16 hours.  Until you've done quite a few smokes, the best way to ascertain their doneness is to check the Internal Temperature (IT).  If you are doing butts, I would assume, you will "pull" it.  There is some discussion about when to take the butts off the smoker for pulling, but generally the target IT would be from 195 to 205. 

What you do in the pre-cook, cook and post-cook times - is up to you and how you like your barbecue - 2 hours smoke, 4 hours, 8 hours - up to you.  Rub, just salt and pepper, simple rub, hot rub, sweet rub - up to you.  Foil, boat, FTC - up to you.  Rub and sit for 24 hours, rub and put in smoker immediately, inject, brine - again all up to you.  Sauce, no sauce, mopping, all up to you.  At first - don't try to combine everybody's recipe and technique into a "perfect" way.  Select one that sounds like you can handle and has the flavors you like, and try it.  Next time modify something you think you can do better, or have a different flavor and modify.  Keep doing that, experiment and change recipes and techniques until you get the butt with the level of fiddling you are content with, an which you and your family and friends REALLY like - not the one Caneyscud likes. 

[NewToSmoking]

Caneyscud,

Thanks for the information and I want to get this straight.  All my butts are real close to 6.5 lbs each and have bone in.  When the temp of the smoker gets to 225 then it should only take the same amount of time as if I was only doing one butt.  I just don't want to have the butt cooked fully in the amount of time that I have, you know kids want to eat. :D 

I know I just should have confidence but it is my very first time using a smoker and I cannot wait to see how it tastes.

Thanks again.

[Caneyscud]

In general - but remember the 225 is average for the cook.  Being bone in, they will take a little longer, but the bigger challenge will be getting the cabinet temperature back up to 225 with the 4 butts.  Once you can maintain close to 225 then the 1 1/2 to 2 hour per pound kicks in - overall, it can be more depending on the recovery time to 225.  The Bradley has a 500 watt heating element, and a 125 watt smoking element - not a whole lot of wattage - your house oven is probably rated 4 to 6 times that much.  A Bradley is designed for low-n-slow and does a great job, but when loaded down with big cold masses of meat, there is but a relatively small pool of heat to pull from therefore it takes a while to get back up to 225.  That is a big variable as well as how often one peeks - opens the door, if the vent is open (should be at least 1/3 but should be more), the amount of fat, juiciness, windage, ambient temperature, and the inherent "toughness" of the butt (amount of collagen).  Overall, on the big smokes it could take more than 2 hours per pound, possibly up to 3 hours per pound - routinely those that put 4 butts in see 16 to 18 hours.  I'd start and plan to finish 2 hours before you want to serve them and throw them in a cooler to keep warm - probably starting them like at least 20 hours before needing them on the plate.  But check them before 18 hours with not only IT, but the fork test.  They can be "tender done" before they are "temperature done".  Along about an IT of 175 I'd do a fork test - stick a fork in and twist.  If it pulls apart easily, then it is done. 

The Bradley propane reportedly does not cook as low as 225 - usually in the 250 to 300 range in hot parts of the country, so they could be done sooner - not a problem, keep them in an insulated cooler.  I kept 8 briskets warm for about 12 hours this weekend.  For some reason a couple were done very fast - slightly less than 1 hour per pound (about 7 am, but did not need them until 6 pm).  Put them in a cooler and as the others got done - added them along with the fatties and bacon explosions and they all stayed warm until serving!

Obligatory Warning   -  The more you peek the longer.  There will also be a plateau.  Once the IT reaches 145 to 160, it will stall for what seems like "FOREVER"!  Don't worry it is supposed to - you want it to - it's doing very nice things to the meat - tenderizing it!  Resist the urge to jack the temperature up - remember low - n - slow is your friend.  Another word of advice - the element is either on or off, so setting the temp to 300 instead of 225 will not cause it to recover faster.  Most usually start the Bradley at least 30 minutes before to preheat as high as you can before putting the meat in.  Helps with recovery a little.

Of course another course of action would be to smoke them in the smoker for 4 hours or more, then put them in a foil pan, add a splash of liquid, seal with foil, and put in your oven.  At 350 a butt needs 3/4 hour per pound to get done, but most use 250 until done I believe. 

[KyNola]

NTS,
You have received an abundance of information from various members that would apply were you smoking your butts in an Original Bradley Smoker or a Bradley Digital Smoker but unfortunately you're not.  You're smoking those butts in a Bradley Propane Smoker.  You cannot preheat a BPS as you have to remove the "cover" to place the butts inside so all of the "preheat" will instantly will be gone.  You don't have a 500 watt electric element to heat the smoker.  You have no house oven to move the butts to after the smoke period.

Give yourself plenty of time to smoke your butts.  4 hours of smoke should be adequate.  Then it is a matter of cooking until an IT of 185-200 if you want to be able to pull pork.  If they get finished before you're ready to pull and serve, you have been given good information as to how to keep the butts warm via the FTC method.  Best advice is invest in a digital readout thermometer that you can put a probe in one of the butts to measure the IT and another that will measure the temp inside the smoker.  Try to maintain a temp in the smoker of around 225 but don't despair if the temp varies.  Pork butts are very forgiving.  The "stall" of butts at an IT of 145-160 for several hours is very real.  Last weekend my pork stalled in excess of 4 hours at 159 and actually dropped back to 156.  That is magic.  Don't increase the heat to bump the IT.  It will start back up when the butt is ready to start back up.

Most importantly, relax, enjoy yourself and have fun.

KyNola

[NewToSmoking]

Thought of one more question.....

When should I start the smoke, before the heat, during heat up, or after the heat is established?

Thanks one and all for your suggestions and help.

NTS

[squirtthecat]

I would start the smoke when the meat is loaded, and the cover is on.   Otherwise you are just making smoke for no reason at all, and wasting biscuits.

[OU812]

I have never used the BPS but I would have to second what squirt has said

Start the smoke when you put the butt in and cover on

Good luck and keep us posted on how things turn out

[KyNola]

Squirt and 812 have you covered on your last question.

Now...get out there and smoke some butt!!

KyNola

[NewToSmoking]

Thank you all for your information.  Sorry it has taken me so long to get back with you but my butts were a hit!!!!!  Several people came over to our camp site and had some and then told the head person that they were awesome!!!!!  It took almost 24 hours to cook.  I didn't let the butt sit out very long and when I put the probe in for the temp the internal temp was at 33F, a bit cold. 

One other problem that I had too.   I had four 6 lbs butts and put two on each rack.  Racks were placed on 1 and 3 to give enough clearance between racks.  The butt that was over the flame got a little over cooked on the one end over the flame, but most of it was still usable. 

Now I'm going to try to cook some pork ribs this weekend, I'm hoping that they won't take as long to cook.  lol  Any ideas on the length of time for the ribs?

What is the easiest way to post pictures here?  I'll post the pictures when I find out how.

Thanks again to all.

NTS

[HawkeyeSmokes]

Hey NTS, glad to hear the pork butt turned out well. Doing ribs, I would guess 4 to 6 hours depending on the ribs and temperature control.

Here's a link on how to post pictures. http://www.susanminor.org/forums/showpost.php?p=768&postcount=11

[Tenpoint5]

NTS here's How to smoke ribs in a bradley