Grumpy Gator
07-01-2006, 12:46 AM
Recently I've seen several posts on this site and others about doing a pork butt in 5 hours. Absolutely ludicrous as far as I was concerned. But I kept seeing it posted.
So this weekend I was going to do 4 butts and a brisket. 2 of the butts were for me & my freezer and 2 were for friends who I ship Q to every couple of months. I decided to break the cook up and do a couple of the butts using the Quick 5 hour method I'd read about.
I cranked the cooker up to 350*, prepped the butts as usual with TXBBQRub, except I didn't inject, which I've been doing lately. Put the butts on and waited. Sure enough at about 2 hours and 45 minutes, the butts had reached 165 internal. I took them off the smoker, basted with apple juice and double wrapped in foil. Back on the smoker to finish.
I soon noticed that if I didn't reduce the temps in the smoker, the butts would be at 200* in another 45 minutes. So I closed off all intake vents and got the smoker down to 260* fairly quickly.
Roughly 1-1/2 hours later the butts were almost to 210. I was going to take them off at 200* but the time seemed so short I was concerned. At the 2 hour mark after foiling, the butts were at 212*. I took them off, put on another layer of foil, wrapped each in a towel and put in a dry cooler.
1 hour later I took the first butt out and pulled it. It was moist, flavorful, smokey throughout. Downside was that there was less bark than normal. There was still bark, and it was delicious, just less than normal. There was a good smoke ring also. During the first 3 hours, I made sure that there was plenty of smoke wood. I used apple and sugar maple.
I pulled the second butt shortly after. In both butts, the fat & collagen was rendered just like they had cooked for 16 hours.
I was a skeptic, and was prepared to laugh at whoever decided that you could cook a but in 5 hours. Well, I'm a skeptic no longer.
I really don't expect you to believe this, but hope you will take the time to experiment with a couple of butts sometime. How nice it is to know you can cook a butt or two on relatively short notice with no appreciable downside.
So this weekend I was going to do 4 butts and a brisket. 2 of the butts were for me & my freezer and 2 were for friends who I ship Q to every couple of months. I decided to break the cook up and do a couple of the butts using the Quick 5 hour method I'd read about.
I cranked the cooker up to 350*, prepped the butts as usual with TXBBQRub, except I didn't inject, which I've been doing lately. Put the butts on and waited. Sure enough at about 2 hours and 45 minutes, the butts had reached 165 internal. I took them off the smoker, basted with apple juice and double wrapped in foil. Back on the smoker to finish.
I soon noticed that if I didn't reduce the temps in the smoker, the butts would be at 200* in another 45 minutes. So I closed off all intake vents and got the smoker down to 260* fairly quickly.
Roughly 1-1/2 hours later the butts were almost to 210. I was going to take them off at 200* but the time seemed so short I was concerned. At the 2 hour mark after foiling, the butts were at 212*. I took them off, put on another layer of foil, wrapped each in a towel and put in a dry cooler.
1 hour later I took the first butt out and pulled it. It was moist, flavorful, smokey throughout. Downside was that there was less bark than normal. There was still bark, and it was delicious, just less than normal. There was a good smoke ring also. During the first 3 hours, I made sure that there was plenty of smoke wood. I used apple and sugar maple.
I pulled the second butt shortly after. In both butts, the fat & collagen was rendered just like they had cooked for 16 hours.
I was a skeptic, and was prepared to laugh at whoever decided that you could cook a but in 5 hours. Well, I'm a skeptic no longer.
I really don't expect you to believe this, but hope you will take the time to experiment with a couple of butts sometime. How nice it is to know you can cook a butt or two on relatively short notice with no appreciable downside.