We are having a rather large gathering at my folks house on Saturday and I have about 30lbs of shoulder and a 12lb brisket to do. Food service is supposed to start at about 6 pm. I only have one smoker to work with (WSM 18.5) so my plan is:
1) Being able to pull the Brisket off the Smoker at 3:00 PM Saturday afternoon to allow a couple hours of rest and since this will be the first brisket on the WSM (others had been on an offset) the 3:00 still allows a +/- of 2.5 hours cooking time without running it to overcook or under cook issues. My previous briskets I've run on the offset ran 12-14 hours so it will be an late PM Friday or, more likely, an early AM Saturday start on the brisket.
2) Doing the Shoulders on Friday and pulling them Friday night. I'll bump the smoker temp up to the 250 degree area since it will be a bit more meat than I usually cook, how much extra time should I expect to add to a normal smoke doing four times the amount? The timing on the shoulders isn't needing to be nearly as precise since I'll be finishing them up the day before but would like to know if my normal 8-10 hours is going to jump to 16 hours or some such. Also doing four shoulders at once I think I'll use both racks on the WSM, how often should I rotate the meat to keep the cook times closer/more even?
I had thought I could reverse the two and do the brisket Friday and the pork Saturday, but since I'm pulling the pork I thought it wouldn't matter near as much that it be smoker warm compared to the brisket which we will slice some and chop a bit. Does anyone have any contrary options as to mine?
Shoulders are rubbed and in the fridge now and the wife is none to happy that nothing is going on the smoker today so I am sure what ever I do make for dinner tonight will not be any good.
Thanks for any input you care to add.
Bob3
1) Being able to pull the Brisket off the Smoker at 3:00 PM Saturday afternoon to allow a couple hours of rest and since this will be the first brisket on the WSM (others had been on an offset) the 3:00 still allows a +/- of 2.5 hours cooking time without running it to overcook or under cook issues. My previous briskets I've run on the offset ran 12-14 hours so it will be an late PM Friday or, more likely, an early AM Saturday start on the brisket.
2) Doing the Shoulders on Friday and pulling them Friday night. I'll bump the smoker temp up to the 250 degree area since it will be a bit more meat than I usually cook, how much extra time should I expect to add to a normal smoke doing four times the amount? The timing on the shoulders isn't needing to be nearly as precise since I'll be finishing them up the day before but would like to know if my normal 8-10 hours is going to jump to 16 hours or some such. Also doing four shoulders at once I think I'll use both racks on the WSM, how often should I rotate the meat to keep the cook times closer/more even?
I had thought I could reverse the two and do the brisket Friday and the pork Saturday, but since I'm pulling the pork I thought it wouldn't matter near as much that it be smoker warm compared to the brisket which we will slice some and chop a bit. Does anyone have any contrary options as to mine?
Shoulders are rubbed and in the fridge now and the wife is none to happy that nothing is going on the smoker today so I am sure what ever I do make for dinner tonight will not be any good.
Thanks for any input you care to add.
Bob3
