New Guy Pork Butt

[rexy]

Hello all.  I have a 4 rack Digital Bradley Smoker.  I did my first pork butt (about 6 and a half pounds bone in) a couple of weekends ago and it turned out great!  Took about 6 to 6 and a half hours to cook, and I covered it in foil and let rest in my oven (turned off) for about an hour before I pulled it. 

Now for my question: I want to smoke pulled pork for about 75-85 people for the 4th of July.  Does anyone know about how much a 4 rack smoker can handle at once?  I know I still had room on my rack with the 6 pounder I tried.  Also, with all of that pork in the smoker, does the length of time to smoke increase?  I would like to start smoking the night before to have the butts ready to pull around noon on the 4th.  Thanks for the help!

[Habanero Smoker]

Hi Rexy;

Welcome to the forum.

I believe you can fit four. Those that have done so will be responding. If they are too wide to fit two on a rack, you can use butcher's string to tie and make the butts more compact. If you have the time and skill you can debone them and then tie them. Boneless butts take up less space, will cook much faster, but to me you loose some flavor.

A little over 6 hours is somewhat fast for a six pound butt. The larger the load, the longer it will take the butts to be finished, but you only need to apply the same amount of smoke. With only 500 watts, it will take it a while to get up to your set temperature. If possible, after applying the smoke, move two of them into your oven. That will improve the cabinet temperature in the Bradley.

[Caneyscud]

Welcome to the forum rexy.  Congrats on the first smoke and getting it to pull apart at 6 hours!  I'm not usually able to do that. 

It is hard to guesstimate the amount of barbecue a group will eat.  Depends on gender, how long it has been since they last ate, age, number of sides and what you will serve. 

Rules of thumb
Pulled sandwich = 1/4 pound is one sandwich and one serving
Sliced pork = 1/3 pound is one serving.  Too big for grandma or the brown-rice-and-yogurt-touchy-feely-70s-Zen-hippie group, but too small for guys like me.

Butts will lose approximately 40% when cooking. 

Other variables, would be when you are serving, and what else you are serving.  If you do a lot of appetizers - ABT's, Moinkballs, fatties, etc.. they won't be as hungry.  So take your number of servings (guests X 1.25 or up to 1.5 - guess of how many will want seconds), multiply what your serving size will will be (say 1/3 lb) then multiply that by 1.67 to get your raw weight of pork butt needed.

(85 x 1.5) x 1/3 (.33) x 1.67 = 70.26 lbs.  That would be for healthy eaters (50 % seconds and 1/3 lb portions on the plate)

(85 x 1.5) x 1/4 (.25) x 1.67 = 53.23 lbs.   That would be for healthy eaters (50% seconds and 1/4 lb servings on sammies)

I only did this to show that multiple butts will be needed with possibly more than one smoker and oven session over possibly two days time.  With the sammie scenario, to be one smoke would require 4 - 13 pound butts.  This number of this size butts could very easily take 20 hours or more to cook.  More than likely this would require two smokes as many report only being able to get 30 to 40 pounds of butt into a 4 rack smoker. 

You might have a lot left over as happened recently to Halen, or like my latest -  almost none left over. 

Check out this thread about cooking multiple butts.
http://forum.bradleysmoker.com/index.php?topic=10335.0

[rexy]

Habanero and Caneyscud-  Thank you both for the replies!  I had every intention of my first pork butt taking 8 hours, but when I probed it at about 6 and a half it was done.  I guess I got a little over aggressive with the box temp on the Bradley.  Next time I will defiantly cook it lower and slower.

Canyscud-  Thank you for the excellent breakdown and rules of thumb.  That formula is great!  It sounds like I would do best to smoke over a couple of days, and reheat on the 4th.  Do you think I could do 4 10 pounders at once?  Can each rack handle a 10 pounder.  If so, does anyone have some time estimates on this much pork? 

Thanks again!

[Habanero Smoker]

I found a spread sheet that calculates how much raw meat you need per person. I posted it awhile back, but for some reason I can't locate it, if I find it I either provide a link to the post or to the site.

[Redlite]

Hi There,

I have just put in 2 cuts of pork shoulder in my 6 rack digital smoker.  One is ~9.5lbs and the second is a 12lbs both bone in.  The only problem that I would see in trying to get 4 x 10lbs into your smoker at once is the height between racks.  Mine have to skip a rack slot to fit.  So you might be better served with putting in 2 shoulders for smoke then remove to the oven to finish cooking then you can get the other 2 in the smoker and cook them in there until they are done.  The difference in time would be roughly the amount of smoke you use.

Hope that helps a bit and thanks again all who help out here.  You guys have helped and guided me with all of my smoking through your insights.

Redlite

[rexy]

Redlite-

That is a good point.  I'm sure the meat would be to "tall" for every rack to be full.  How long would you smoke a 12 pound butt before moving it into the oven?

[Ka Honu]

Short answer - Everyone pretty much agrees that 4 hours of smoke in a Bradley is about as much as you're going to get a benefit from.  If your temps are reasonable, after 4 hours your meat has absorbed about all the smoke flavor it's going to take and you're pretty much wasting bisquettes.

[bsheger]

Using 10# butts, the most I have been able to get in my 6 rack is 4.  That was turning 2 of the racks up to gain a little extra space between the rack below it, then skipping a space.  There is just not a enough space between the racks.  I have fed 15-18 people with 1 - 10# butt before and no one went away hungry.