Pork Butts for Celebrate Recovery Today!

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bimmer

Fire Starter
Original poster
May 24, 2010
62
10
Tacoma, Washington
Our Celebrate Recovery group celebrates 2 years today at our church and they wanted BBQ. Instead of forking over dough to some retail outlet, I told them I'd smoke it. Went to Sam's and picked up a twin pack weighing 19#. Rubbed em down and wrapped em in plastic wrap on Wednesday night and took them out this morning at 4am. Got the smoker started with lump charcoal around 4:30. Put the butts in around 5am. I'm using a pan of sand for heat retention. Left for Men's Bible Study and got back around 8am. Internal temp was 114 and coals were spent. Dropped another load in and added some soaked apple chunks. (I don't use chips). It's now 9:15 and I have the probe in the slightly smaller of the two butts and the internal temp right now is 134 and climbing. That means I'm at at 4 hours and I've still not hit the 141 mark. Do you guys think I'm still ok?

I figured at about 150 or 155 spritz them will apple juice and double wrap in heavy foil and then let them sit in a moderate heat for about an hour and then pack them a blanket and put them in a cooler until 5pm when we leave for church. 

All this sound about right to guys who are pro-foiling?

Am I okay at not getting out of the danger zone just yet?

Thanks guys!

I'll send some picks when they're done. My smoker is nothing special. It's a very inexpensive Brinkmann Vertical, single-door smoker. I don't have two probes yet so I have no idea really what my smoker temps are. I'm going strictly by internal temp. The door gauge read a little over 300 a little while ago but we all know how inaccurate those things are. One of these days I'll get an Maverick ET-732 or whatever it is that seems to get such high reviews.

UPDATE: It's 9:37 and internal now reads 139.

UPDATE: It's 9:57 and internal now reads 144.

UPDATE: It's 10:30 and internal now reads 160 on the bigger butt. 

Time to spritz and double-wrap and put back in the smoker for a low/slow cook for a bit.

 
Last edited:
I personally would ride them out longer, shooting for pulled pork, which would be around 200 IT. The planned resting phase sounds fine and you are steadily climbing...might hit a stall, might not. Sounds like you have enough time to go longer if you wish to pull as opposed to slicing....HTH, Willie
 
Thanks Willie. In pulling them and foiling them I lost some heat. I just threw a few more apple chunks on the remaining coals and it's heating up again. Obviously I took the probe out of the butt and left it in the smoker, so my smoker temp is now about 210. I'm sure it'll hang their a few. I left much of the fat on and facing up so that it could melt through the meat. I'll keep an eye out on it while I'm mowing. 
 
Well I'm not taking chances. Fired up the oven and going to finish them of there. Got three hours to get them up to temp.
 
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