temp plateau's

[Craig]

Can somebody with some more experience than me give me some general information on temperature plateau's. Typically when I'm cooking a butt or large piece of beef, the temp rises rapidly for the first several hours, then begins tapering off. It seems when the pork or beef reaches around 135 to 145 it stalls, sometimes for over an hour before I see a rise in meat temp. I'm cooking at a really consistent 225, and try to not to open the pit for the first two hours, then about every 60 to 90 minutes to spray. The butt I cooked yesterday hit the wall at around 138, and over the next 2 hours went up around 7 degrees. This was a seven pound butt, and it seemed it would have been closer to two hours per pound if I would have stuck it out, but I ended up finishing it in the oven because I ran out of time. What is the norm for the platueau.

[burnt food dude]

I don't know how to explain it properly butt...

I've been told when an internal temp stalls the internal fat starts rendering down. The rendering process has a cooling effect (sort of) on the meat. Until enough fat is rendered the internal stalls. This is the process that makes your meat tender and flavorful. This is when, as some people would say, the magic happens. And you don't need the Keebler Elves for this magic. Just patience :wink:

Burnt Food Dude

[KazQ]

Can somebody with some more experience than me give me some general information on temperature plateau's. Typically when I'm cooking a butt or large piece of beef, the temp rises rapidly for the first several hours, then begins tapering off. It seems when the pork or beef reaches around 135 to 145 it stalls, sometimes for over an hour before I see a rise in meat temp. I'm cooking at a really consistent 225, and try to not to open the pit for the first two hours, then about every 60 to 90 minutes to spray. The butt I cooked yesterday hit the wall at around 138, and over the next 2 hours went up around 7 degrees. This was a seven pound butt, and it seemed it would have been closer to two hours per pound if I would have stuck it out, but I ended up finishing it in the oven because I ran out of time. What is the norm for the platueau.

Well you have to stop looking and spraying after only 2 hours,a 7 pound pork butt should be around 160 after say 5-6 hours at 225 degrees cooking temperature.Now if you looked at the 2 hour mark you just added an hour+ to your cook.Also why spray?The more you spray ,the more you look the more dry the pork get's.Stop looking,cook at 225 and don't lift you door for the first 5 hours,and it'll be a lot easier for you.
Also will stay stuck at 165-170 for around 2 hours,then will scoot up to 195-198 and your done for pulled pork.

[Bob T]

I do picnics more than butts, but have the same stick point around 160-170 degrees. I get picnics around the 10 pound range, and most times they take around 20 hours. After I trim them and put on the rub, (sometimes I inject also) I put them on the smoker and don't bother with them for at least 10 hours. I have had times when I haven't opened the lid for 15 hours. If I do baste, the lid isn't off for more than ten seconds. When it get's to 190, I'll tug on the bone to check to see if it's done. I also do whole tip roast a lot, and I don't pull the lid off for hours with them either.
I will have to admit, when I was newer at this, I pulled the lid off all the time to take a look, or find those little hunks of meat that may be sticking out and pull off to sample lol. Found out it was only creating problems doing that.

[TexLaw]

I'm with everyone else. Don't flap the lid if you don't have to. I try to leave that thing alone as much as I can.

That plateau is partly due to fat rendering and dripping away, but mostly due to the collagen gelatinizing. That reaction doesn't start until you get to around 140F. Gelatinizing takes a lot of energy, so your meat temperature doesn't go up much once you hit that point. After a large portion of that collagen has gelatinized, you're back to pumping more energy into the meat than the reaction takes, so your temperature starts rising again. The duration of the plateau can vary quite a bit.


TL