I purchased a beautiful looking 9 lb. pork butt and cooked it today. It is the first time I'm using Royal Oak lump charcoal in my PB Jr. instead of Kingsford briquets.
There was no problem lighting the pit, but after a couple hours, I found that the charcoal slowly started to burn out to the point I had to add another 8-10 pieces of lump. When I took it off at 160° to wrap it in butcher paper, the circumference of the butt got even larger. The temperature started to drop and I removed the rebar to get it back up to the mid-200s, but again the temp started to drop. Finally, I cracked the lid to get the temps back up and finished the cook. For the record, the butt was outta this world!
So the lesson I learned today is that for a small family, the PBJ is ideal. I've had a dozen successful cooks since I bought the PBJ this summer. On those occasions when you want to cook more quantity or mass, either the meat has to be halved, or I need to invest in a PBC. Airflow is critical.
I could have hung the butt to avoid this blocking issue, but I was concerned that the meat would be so tender that it might just fall off the hook and into the fire. Anyway, I wanted to wrap it, so hanging wasn't really an option.
Alls well that ends well, and after 11 hours of cooking to 203° and an additional rest of 2 hours, the result was spectacular! Next time I'll know better than to buy a such a large chunk of meat.
There was no problem lighting the pit, but after a couple hours, I found that the charcoal slowly started to burn out to the point I had to add another 8-10 pieces of lump. When I took it off at 160° to wrap it in butcher paper, the circumference of the butt got even larger. The temperature started to drop and I removed the rebar to get it back up to the mid-200s, but again the temp started to drop. Finally, I cracked the lid to get the temps back up and finished the cook. For the record, the butt was outta this world!
So the lesson I learned today is that for a small family, the PBJ is ideal. I've had a dozen successful cooks since I bought the PBJ this summer. On those occasions when you want to cook more quantity or mass, either the meat has to be halved, or I need to invest in a PBC. Airflow is critical.
I could have hung the butt to avoid this blocking issue, but I was concerned that the meat would be so tender that it might just fall off the hook and into the fire. Anyway, I wanted to wrap it, so hanging wasn't really an option.
Alls well that ends well, and after 11 hours of cooking to 203° and an additional rest of 2 hours, the result was spectacular! Next time I'll know better than to buy a such a large chunk of meat.
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