First post, smoking pork butt in La Paz - Bolivia (11800ft)

[kpax]

Hello to everyone, I found this forum a few weeks ago and have found it very helpful. With tips from here and youtube, I have managed to smoke decent butts (no connoisseur has ever tried them).

I Read the (few) posts on smoking in high-altitude. However, none even close to the altitude where I smoke. I have smoked maybe 10 times so far in an offset smoker, custom made (metal thickness is about 3mm - nothing too great, but pretty much what's available here without importing).

My main concerns are the following:

1. Time. I first started smoking at 240-250 as advised, but I had to use tiny pieces of wood to achieve a stable temperature (1/3'' thicknes, maybe 4'' long and 1'' wide) and add new (cannot even call it logs) pieces every 5 minutes or so. It's just a pain and took me 13-14 hours (without oven finish) to reach 152 (temperature at which I decided to wrap because otherwise the water evaporates and the meat is too dry in the end).

Question 1: would raising the smoking temperature to maybe 280 in the hopes to reduce the smoking time to 10 hours (without oven time), approximately, ultimately affect the quality of the meat?

2. Smoking 6 pork butts that take up the whole smoker space. I really haven't found anything regarding this. I understand that the more stable the temperature, the better the end-result. I know that the smoker has pretty much 3 different temperatures along the smoking chamber. However, I run a small business and can't smoke 2 pork butts per session because of the time it takes. I attached a pic and, as you can see, my smoker is pretty packed with 6 butts. I rotate the meats every 55 minutes because the temperature varies from close to the fire to furthest point by 35 degrees or so (A LOT). Rotating has allowed to (kinda) achieve an even cooking temperature for all the butts.

Question 2: For those of you who like me try to make things perfect, do you think this rotating process (smoker stays open for maybe 2-3 minutes while I spray, change positions and rotate the pork-butts) will affect the quality of the end result? The bark?

I appreciate any kind of help. I have so many more questions, but I don't want the post to be super long.

Cheers to everyone for sharing your knowledge and helping those of us who just started smoking!

 

[JLeonard]

Welcome to the forum from Mississippi. I'm gonna let those with far more experience chime in on most of your questions. But as far as temps for butts......Sometimes you will work yourself to death trying to get and maintain that 225 degree temp. Doing butts I let my smoker settle in where it will. Anywhere from 225-300 degrees. And it varies from cook to cook....the environment will affect it alot.

Jim

 

[DRKsmoking]

Welcome to the forum, from Nova Scotia.

Like JLeonard " Jim " said , and I will also leave it to better folks to let you know about the altitude thing for smoking.

David

 

[smokerjim]

Welcome to smf as far as altitude I can't answer that either I'm only at 1500ft. As far as temp I dont see any problem cranking it up to 275-300. As far as spraying did you ever try not spraying, I dont spray anything but that's a personal preference. Another thought too after you wrap do you have ovens you could finish them in that would be alot easier then tending a fire.

 

[BigW.]

Welcome. We'd love a picture of you smoker. Smoking at a higher temp would be fine. If you need to rotate pork after a couple hours that's fine, but I would not worry about spritzing every hour. If you do that once or twice fine, but I do not think it is necessary. Opening up the pit that often lets out heat, and you said you are busy. As said before, after a few hours of smoke, you can throw it in the oven if you want to save time from managing the fire.

 

[kpax]

Welcome to smf as far as altitude I can't answer that either I'm only at 1500ft. As far as temp I dont see any problem cranking it up to 275-300. As far as spraying did you ever try not spraying, I dont spray anything but that's a personal preference. Another thought too after you wrap do you have ovens you could finish them in that would be alot easier then tending a fire.

I put trays of water underneath and also spray the pork with apple cider/water mix because weather here is super dry and a bit of humidity helps. I do have an oven to finish the pork, def!

 

[kpax]

Thanks all for the tips. Attached the pic of the smoker

 

[gmc2003]

Don't worry about smoking the butts at 280* or even 300*. They're very forgiving and can easily handle the higher temps. Also do you have access to charcoal or lump to go along with the wood splits? If you do that would make tending your smoker a whole lot easier. I'm with the others no spritzing needed and when you reach the stall then wrap them up if time is of the essence.


Welcome aboard
Chris

 

[jcam222]

Welcome from Ohio. For cooking temp I am a huge fan of cooking around 275F. I've done it many times and do not think the quality of the finished product suffers at all. Last cook I did 20 butts in a time crunch and ran close to 300 the whole time. Results were fantastic. Rotating the hot spot makes perfect sense and also will not negatively impact your results.

 

[JckDanls 07]

Welcome to SMF from Florida

Lets talk more about your fire management.. I'm curious about your air vents and if there are any leaks around the firebox door... It's sounding like you have no control of the fire with air vents and this is why you have to use such small sticks (controlling temps with the size of the stick)...

 

[SmokinEdge]

Lots of good advice above. I live in Colorado at about 6400’ elevation and see no problem from that and my cook times are right on pare with everyone else around the country. Like most have said I much prefer 250-300F cooking temp and with that much meat in a smaller smoker you need some horsepower in the heat department.
All that said, I think you first need to learn fire management and where your pit likes to settle in and run with a bed of Hot coals. Managing a fire in an offset is more managing the coal bed than a fire really. The coals are what does the cooking, the adding of splits is what adds coals to the bed. So you start out (no meat in the cooker) cooker door open, put enough wood in your box to make a nice layer of coals once burned down. Once you have coals you add a small split close the chamber adjust your air intake and let it settle in. From there you add splits just to keep enough coals for the temp you want. You can also look into a charcoal basket to use in the fire box or like Chris said above, try starting out with a hot bed of charcoal then feed it from there. Hope this helps.

 

[schlotz]

The guys have you covered with sound advice. I will add that after 5-6 hours of good smoke its perfectly fine to wrap tight in foil and finish in the oven at 300ºƒ. I no longer spray at although I do brine first. In your case with varying temps in the pit my first thought would be to consider brining the butts overnight. Apply what ever rub you choose in the morning, then while smoking, rotate them as fast as possible and shut the lid.

 

[kpax]

Welcome to SMF from Florida

Lets talk more about your fire management.. I'm curious about your air vents and if there are any leaks around the firebox door... It's sounding like you have no control of the fire with air vents and this is why you have to use such small sticks (controlling temps with the size of the stick)...

That's exactly the problem with low oxygen because of high altitude. If I don't keep the vents wide open, the fire won't ignite. If, for example, I use medium-sized logs and want to burn them at low temperature (close vents), the fire at such low temperature and little oxygen, will just go out and will produce (bad) white smoke. So, unless the fire is burning "strongly" there is no fire whatsoever.