Boston Butt smoke with pictures

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smokinfam

Smoke Blower
Original poster
Sep 27, 2007
89
14
Indiana
I started off with a 9 lb Boston Butt.  I rubbed it down last night around 9am and put it in the fridge.  This morning around 7am I started smoking it between 225 and 240.  It just reached 150 degF after 11hours, so I foiled it and stuck it in the oven at 250 degF.  I think this is going to be a slow one... I told my wife it may be 11pm before we can eat dinner!

Just curious if I might have done something wrong here.  I was surprised after 11hours, it was only at 150F.  Should I have left it in the smoker awhile longer?

I'll post a picture when it gets done...

Here are some pictures:

1f149757_IMAG0323.jpg


After 11hours, it's at 150F.  I decided to foil and get into the oven at 250F.

667135a3_IMAG0327.jpg
 
Looks good really...But I would check my thermometer...It should of been very close to done at those temperatures for 11 hours. Are you using a digital thermometer with a probe you stick inside the meat? That is the only true way to tell the temps. You can not go by the one on the door.

Hope this helps, Steve
 
I'm not surprised that it took that long to cook necessarily. What surprises me is the temperature at 11 hours. I did two 8 lb. a few days ago (brined). That was the first time I had done any that big of size. They were Berkshire boston butts that took over 4 hrs. 20 min to get to 140 (including the time before going into the cooker). I was cooking at 230-240 degree area initially for the most part then went to 250-260 deg. for just under an hour, then down to 220-225. And, it was 11 hrs. 45 min. to where the temperature got to 170. If I go anything less that 165 for me it just ends up being a slicer instead of being able to pull it.

Is it possible that your fridge was pretty cold when you took it out? I don't like leaving pork out too terribly long in advance but it is beneficiary to do so. With these it was under a half hour. Like the previous poster suggested, it may have something to do with the thermometer and it's really not that uncommon for them to not be accurate. I use a Polder automatic digital read thermometer with cords that go outside the cooker so that temps can be monitored that's worked really well for me. It's possible that for some  unknown reason yours hung awhile sometime during cooking too. I've had that happen when my cooker temp. began to tail off and it taking a good while to start moving again back up to normal cooking temperature. 
 
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