Syzygies Posted August 30, 2012 Report Share Posted August 30, 2012 For Labor Day, I'm being asked how many pounds of Pork Butt I can comfortably produce at once. Not the theoretical limit, but a large load whose quality would be indistinguishable from just two or four butts. Any experience to share? Also, half a pound per person often handles large mixed crowds. For a younger, hungry outdoor crowd where alcohol could be a factor, what is a more conservative rule of thumb? Cost is not a concern, and we can distribute leftovers. I've seen six or eight people destroy a Pork Butt under the right circumstances in my back yard, but I've never seen this ravenous frenzy take hold in very large groups. But one can dream, and I'd like to be prepared. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tucker Posted August 30, 2012 Report Share Posted August 30, 2012 Re: Pork Butt capacity not sure what post it was, but recall Chris Lilly in NYC doing 8 - 8# butts at once on a 23" KK. 4 on main grill, 4 on upper grill. post is in the forums somewhere. my experience with ravenous folks is up to 3/4-1# per person. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DennisLinkletter Posted August 30, 2012 Report Share Posted August 30, 2012 Re: Pork Butt capacity Definitely do this.. To make a huge indirect area.. run a sheet of tin foil from the front to the rear of the lower grill and place the drip pan on top of that.. This leaves two areas the size of your hand left and right for the inverted waterfall of hot air to escape the firebox and lets you completely stuff most of the main and upper grill with meat that is protected from the hotter airflow. Here's four main.. with this size butt, I think 4 main and 3 upper would fly.. n67286 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunner Posted August 31, 2012 Report Share Posted August 31, 2012 Re: Pork Butt capacity I did about 50 lbs. of Pork Butt this summer on mine. I did the foil trick on the bottom rack and then I put 2 butts in an aluminum pan with a little apple juice in it on the middle grate and 2 more in a pan on the top grate. This way all the juice stays in the pans and then when you are done take the juice and reduce by 1/2 or 1/3 and when the pork is pulled pour the juice over the pork to keep the pullings moist and then drizzle some honey on also. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadMedik Posted August 31, 2012 Report Share Posted August 31, 2012 Re: Pork Butt capacity I have done 8 and 9 butts at a time with good success. It is funny this is here today, as I just washed my hands from preparing for another 8 butt cook starting Saturday a.m. I use Chris Lilly rub and apple juice injection. I have never done the foil trick as Dennis suggests but I think I will this time. I asked butcher for 8 butts close to 7 pounds as possible. I have the following rubbed with Lilly rub now: 7.02 pounds, 7.07, 6.98 , 6.77. 6.37 , 6.72, 6.98 , 6.85 Add these (54.76 #s) and divide by 8 and you get 6.845 pounds per butt average. We have 57 people coming to dinner , 9 of which are kids and won't eat much. We also are doing 8 tri tips. Should have tons of food /meat to eat. Better to have left overs than order pizza to finish a meal. I feel if the butts were closer to 8 pound each it would be significantly more meat, but the individual size of each would not make it harder to cook and fit on grill.. Go bigger than 8 pounds each may be pushing it....just my thoughts, but never tried... I am a bit nervous to do this for my huge extended family, but I am sure it will turn out. I posted a picture of all the 8 butts cooking from previous cook on the video I made. It is in the Videos section of our web site. Watch it and you will see it flash up. Here is link to my other cook post: this one today is nearly identical: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=4434&p=39845#p39845 Madmedik Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadMedik Posted August 31, 2012 Report Share Posted August 31, 2012 Re: Pork Butt capacity Another thought here... I see Dennis' picture and see how dark or black the butts are. I believe this is good and this happened the first few times I did butts.. Last several though , we're golden brown / brick color...not black. The temps were at 195 and it was done, but not black. Any idea why? Do you all want the blackened effect? Do you get it ?just curious.... I cooked at 250 to 260 degrees... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadMedik Posted August 31, 2012 Report Share Posted August 31, 2012 Re: Pork Butt capacity So Dennis, if you can reply back soon....your post suggests that you do NOT use the heat deflector stone? Only foiling the lower grill and using the LARGE drip pan...correct? This foiling method would appear to cover the top and bottom portions of the grill, leaving only the sides uncovered...the heat comes up from left and right sides, not from top and bottom portion of grill.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DennisLinkletter Posted August 31, 2012 Report Share Posted August 31, 2012 The mustard will turn into a completely black bark.. Another thought here... I see Dennis' picture and see how dark or black the butts are. I believe this is good and this happened the first few times I did butts.. Last several though ' date=' we're golden brown / brick color...not black. The temps were at 195 and it was done, but not black. Any idea why? Do you all want the blackened effect? Do you get it ?just curious.... I cooked at 250 to 260 degrees...[/quote'] Slater your butt with French's Mustard.. and then completely cover with rub. I don't put any salt in my rubs, I salt the meat before I add the mustard. The mustard will turn into a completely black bark.. BTW that was not my cook. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syzygies Posted September 1, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2012 Re: Pork Butt capacity Thanks all. You will be with me in spirit. There will be perhaps 80, but an astonishing fraction of them are vegan (friggin' mathematicians like to follow their own drummer) so my Jiarby-scale gumbo pot may be in service for Rancho Gordo beans. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadMedik Posted September 3, 2012 Report Share Posted September 3, 2012 Re: Pork Butt capacity Ok, I finished my most recent Large Capacity Pork Butt cook. To recap, Syzygies was asking about the Capacity of pork butts in the KK. I mentioned I had done 8 and 9 butts before. When Syzygies posted, i had just finished prepping 8 pork butts for family dinner on Sept 1st. Here is my cook details: I did do the 8 butts. I put 4 on the Main/middle grill, put the upper rack on, and then added 4 more butts for a total of 8. They all just fit perfectly. 9 , maybe 10 could be achieved, but it would be tight. I cooked at 250 degrees, and total time was 9 hours, 45 minutes. the Internal temp of the pork was 195 degrees. They were extremely moist and tasty. I started them at 05:00 Saturday morning. At 2:45 pm they were done. I opened KK , removed the bone from each and moved each one in to Foil wrap. I put all 8 in an ice chest...no ice of course...and they were Freaking HOT when i pulled them out of ice chest at 7pm...so they did "rest" for about 4 hours. I "pulled/shredded" 6 of them and put in a warmer, and dinner was served at 7:30. My family ate approximately 5 of them, leaving the remains in the warmer plus the 2 non pulled butts that were still in the icechest. We did have tri tip also...probably ate 4 or 5 tri tip with the pork....with some fixins also...we served about 55 people, 10 of which were smaller kids. We had tons of food left over. Here are a few pictures of this cook: Important Note or Observations: Be sure to load your charcoal basket full of coals...in fact, make the coals over flow a bit. I put all new , large to medium coals, in the basket but stopped when it was at the top rim of the coal basket. I should have poured in more coals, above the top rim of the basket. I noticed in the last 1 hour and half, my tempature started to decline. I opened up the air flow, at got the temp back up.....then the temps fell again.... I felt I may be running out of coals....as in fact I was..... I was considering opening the KK and removing 2 racks of pork butts, removing the drip pan and heat deflector....just to add more coals....BUT, i did not...I just barely made it... The pork hit 195 Internal temp and we finished the cook Sunday, once all was cool and fire was dead, I removed everything from the KK and found only this amount of coals remain..... 1 hand full.... My temps ran constant 250 to 260 the whole time except the last 1 1/2 hours.... Man...KK saved my ass I am sure. Had she not been a high quality, efficient Kooking Machine I am sure all my coals would have been gone. While reloading coals won't destroy a meal, it sure would have been a pain in the butt to reload.... Next time, i will most definitely over fill the basket... this is the 2nd long cook of 10 hours or so where i have burned nearly the whole coal basket. Perhaps the quality of my coals....Frontier Lump....is not good? It seems I should be able to burn longer than this 10 or so hours... My coals were ALL FRESH and never used ... medium to large coals...hardly any 'smalls' were used. Perhaps I need more 'smalls' to fill in the the gaps and pockets between the large and medium pieces?? It all worked out, meat was great...the only 'concern' is the coals and duration of their heathing ability.... MadMedik Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syzygies Posted September 3, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 3, 2012 Re: Pork Butt capacity Well, I've always cooked very slowly (say, 210 F) for 20 hours or so. I went with six butts 9 lbs each or so for a total of 55 lbs, three on each deck. What I'm seeing on my early morning spot check is that the top three are ahead of the bottom three, nearly ready to serve with seven hours to go. I turned the guru down to 195 F and I'm basically going to ignore this otherwise, mixing the various butts as I pull them. I'm a bit surprised, as in my experience the KK always stabilizes to a very consistent temperature independent of location. I did choose the smaller three butts for the top deck, that could be the main factor here. Other than that, because of shrinkage it would seem from this experience that any load where you can manage to close the lid at first will cook just fine. Large loads don't cook slower. Especially with how tight the KK it, large loads will create a very moist cooking environment, consistent with your reports on how big cooks came out. The pot beans have taken more attention. My 22 quart commercial gumbo pot is nearly full, with Rancho Gordo Sangre de Toro beans. Also simmering overnight, with no signs of overcooking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DennisLinkletter Posted September 3, 2012 Report Share Posted September 3, 2012 Re: Pork Butt capacity Ok, My temps ran constant 250 to 260 the whole time except the last 1 1/2 hours.... Man...KK saved my ass I am sure. Had she not been a high quality, efficient Kooking Machine I am sure all my coals would have been gone. While reloading coals won't destroy a meal, it sure would have been a pain in the butt to reload.... Next time, i will most definitely over fill the basket... this is the 2nd long cook of 10 hours or so where i have burned nearly the whole coal basket. Perhaps the quality of my coals....Frontier Lump....is not good? It seems I should be able to burn longer than this 10 or so hours... My coals were ALL FRESH and never used ... medium to large coals...hardly any 'smalls' were used. Perhaps I need more 'smalls' to fill in the the gaps and pockets between the large and medium pieces?? It all worked out, meat was great...the only 'concern' is the coals and duration of their heathing ability.... MadMedik The volume of the fuel is irrelevant to how long it will burn in your KK.. It's the weight.. and that's where you want to be using dense, heavy hard wood charcoal.. I remember buying a bag of charcoal in No. CA up near my father's house in the wine country and it felt like pine it was soo light. Don't get fooled into thinking you have a lot of carbon in the basket if it feels light. That's another advantage of the extruded coconut charcoal. When DJ did the 80 something hour burn in his KK, definitely one of the factors was that he put I believe 16lbs of charcoal in the grill.. I'll bet you a Komodo that you could not put 16lbs of the light lump you were using into your charcoal basket. That's why they get better $$ for the hard wood lump.. The boys with the big offset cookers can run 5 hours instead of 3-4 per load.. So the insulation in your KK holds in more heat and lets you burn less weight per hour but the volume is dictated by the density of the lump.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadMedik Posted September 3, 2012 Report Share Posted September 3, 2012 Re: Pork Butt capacity That sounds reasonable. The Frontier Lump coals are 10 pounds per bag. I took most of the big and medium pieces out...probably only had 8 to 9 pounds in the basket....and it does feel very light. I need to look around Fresno and search out a better brand, more dense and heavy as you recommend. I do have 6 boxes of your Coconut Charcoal but for some reason I have not been using it. I keep thinking I want to use it for pizza and smoked salmon, but i rarely do those cooks...I have read many people are using Coconut Charcoals almost exclusively for everything... Thanks for the feedback Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syzygies Posted September 3, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 3, 2012 Re: Pork Butt capacity n67297 n67296 n67295 n67294 n67293 n67292 So slowing down the fire a bit till morning did the trick. An hour to go, and everybody is in the 180's, top or bottom deck. I don't like pork all the way to 200 F, it tastes like rope to me, though when other people cook more quickly I'm sure the effect is different. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syzygies Posted September 3, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 3, 2012 Re: Pork Butt capacity n67298 So just filling the charcoal basket with Dennis charcoal would probably last me 48 hours at 210 F, there's always half left when I'm done with pork butt. On top is a two quart dutch oven sealed with flour paste, with three 1/8" holes in the bottom, filled with Hickory and Apple wood chips. Aka "Smoke Pot". None too much smoke, actually rather subtle. Then a 16" terra cotta plant saucer as heat deflector and drip tray, lined with foil. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunner Posted September 4, 2012 Report Share Posted September 4, 2012 Re: Pork Butt capacity When I did mine a few weeks back I just used 1/2 Coconut Charcoal and 1/2 Green egg charcoal. I did fill the basket full but not over flowing and I smoked the butts for 9.5 hours at 225 to 250 deg. The next day I looked and I had used about 1/2 of the charcoal in the basket. The wood I use I get from Fruita wood. I use about 4 chunks inter dispersed in the charcoal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
