20# of butt

parishollow · April 19, 2007, 04:35:35 PM

Now going on 10 and a half hours and it is has been holding steady at 153° for about an hour. I am getting ready to rotate the racks and spritz again. Every three hours I do this.

Should I have the vent all the way closed at this point?

Wildcat · April 19, 2007, 04:46:10 PM

I would never close the vent. I normally keep mine around half to 3/4 open.

parishollow · April 19, 2007, 04:51:32 PM

Thanks for that Wildcat, I opened it to half, it had been about 1/4 open all day and only closed the last hour.

Wildcat · April 19, 2007, 04:53:24 PM

Be extra sure not to close the vent during the smoking portion. The sticky smoke can really ruin the puck advance. I would imagine the moisture does not help it either.

Gizmo · April 19, 2007, 06:32:12 PM

Nice to see you post again Parish,
Wildcat has you dialed in.
I will run the temp probe cords through the vent opening and that ensures my minimum opening will at least be maintained. Most of the time I run about 1/4 to 1/2 open without any backups of smoke into the Generator. As Wilcat stated, sticky smoke and moisture, especially backing up into the smoke gen, is not a good thing.

parishollow · April 19, 2007, 06:45:31 PM

Yea, I knew about not letting the smoke get into the generator but wondered about while cooking. It has been almost two hours now without the internal prob temp going up! Should I not move the racks around? Plenty of water in the pot.

Gizmo · April 19, 2007, 06:59:53 PM

How many racks of meat and how many rack BS is it? The more you open the door the more recovery time is needed. It would also depend on how much variation in temp there is. I would suspect by now the temperatures inside the box are pretty even in comparison to when the meat is below 145 deg or so.

Wildcat · April 19, 2007, 07:54:17 PM

Keep in mind that the meat temp will stall for awhile while the fat renders. May even go down a tad. Be patient, it will get there. ;)

Consiglieri · April 19, 2007, 08:08:43 PM

I'm looking forward to reading your success story and wishing you the best.

parishollow · April 20, 2007, 07:49:40 AM

I was up like an expectant mother all night. I did manage to catch a few winks in between peeks. Next time I will trust the method.

3 butts in at 7:30 am Thursday.
4.5 hours of alternating Hickory and Mesquite
Oven set at 220°

UH OH, don't know how to insert image.

First one hit 191° at 2:30am Friday. I had the remote thermometer close to the bedroom where I would hear it when it went off at 180°. It doesn't go any higher dang it. At that point I gave it another hour and half which brought me to 2:30am. FTC'd it.
All the while our bedroom is on the other side of the house and still the aroma was wafting in the window. My poor neighbors, what dreams they must have been having. When I did dream it was about BBQ.

I kept checking the smoker each time I got up to let the dogs out and in between times. At 4:00 the temp was 187° so I told myself to get up in an hour later. I missed and found the beasts at 198° at 5:30. FTC'd the two that were left.
Got to school at 7:30 and pulled one apart and into the crock pot on low with a little water in the bottom, I forgot the juice from the drip pan at home. DOH! It is so juicy and delicious!! I am baffled that something can cook for 22 hours and not be dried out. I also thought maybe I had put too many spices on, too much rub. Not the case, it is perfect! I will pull the others in about 2.5 hours. They should be fine in the cooler till then. I remember the last one I FTC'd stayed hot for six hours.

Thanks for all the help. This is a great forum!

I will add pictures when I figure that one out or someone tells me. I have to get ready for my kiddos right now though.

Wildcat · April 20, 2007, 11:11:58 AM

Way to go!

iceman · April 20, 2007, 12:55:23 PM

I just love happy endings!!!

Habanero Smoker · April 20, 2007, 02:10:43 PM

Nice work!

hillbillysmoker · April 20, 2007, 03:48:03 PM

and the plan comes together. Way to go.

Gizmo · April 20, 2007, 04:52:10 PM

Quote from: parishollow on April 20, 2007, 07:49:40 AM

UH OH, don't know how to insert image.

I will add pictures when I figure that one out or someone tells me. I have to get ready for my kiddos right now though.

Parish
You need to use a photo hosting service like http://photobucket.com/
You will need to sign up as it will create a Photo book for you to store your pictures in.
When you sign up and login, you will be presented with a screen to upload your images (browse you local computer and select the picture). There is an option when uploading to select the size of you pictures. You can select avatar, thumbnails, etc. My preferece is message board 640x480. This size is easy to see on the screen and makes the picture size small enough for quicker downloading on more limited bandwidth connections.

After the picture completes the upload, You will see your pictures below the upload area. There are 3 boxes (URL Link, HTML TAG, and IMG Code) under each picture. Click on the URL Link box and a little yellow box will pop up telling you the link was copied.

When on the forum here, click on the action button above the smily icons. The box is the second from the left and looks like a picture frame. When you mouse over the box it will say "Insert Image". After clicking on the button, two img bracketed text will show up where the cursor was in your reply box that looks like this with with the [ left braket replacing the left handed > symbol and the ] bracket replacing the > symbol I used to demonstrate the actual text placed.
<img][/img>

Click between the ][ brackets to place your cursor between the two symbols, then paste the link copied from the photobucket site.

There are other services you can use but I can't give you the details on them.
Hope this helps.