A test run on the PBC....

[Bootheel]

Last week, a friend of mine let me borrow his PBC, as I am wanting a new smoker, and it's one of my "final contestants." I cooked on it three times. The first night I just grilled some bratwurst, etc. I was really impressed once I got it up to temp. Had it up to 500 degrees (lid on after I got the fire going well down in the coal holder), then put the meat on. Did ribs the next day, and I left them on too long--I was expecting a bit longer cook time than they actually needed. And I let the ribs hang too close to the coals--as in about 1/2 inch above. Vaporized the bottom rib or two. All the others still tasted good, but weren't as good I've typically done on ye old Weber because of the overcooking.

Then, Thursday I cooked a butt. Took about 9 hours (never wrapped it). I hooked it with four hooks, suspended between the two rebars. I also had the grate in place, just because I wasn't sure if the meat would eventually let go (I was gone for much of the day, and couldn't keep an eye on it). Anyhow, it was good, and from what I was able to observe, it cooked between 275-300 most of the cook. The only problem was that the bark never really set up on the bottom. It was just kind of congealed looking/feeling. What did I do wrong? I've smoked several butts, and only had this happen one other time, and that was when my water pan sprung a leak and almost killed my fire about halfway through a cook (during a competition, no less), when I was using a Weber/smokenator combo.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[Jerod Broussard]

I've never experienced that. I'll have some stalactites hanging from the bottom, but that is the extent of non-bark formations.

[MBMorgan]

What kind of charcoal are you using? What lighting procedure did you use? Both can have a dramatic effect on how the PBC behaves ...

[fzxdoc]

What did you use to monitor the temp of that pork butt cook? Are you pretty sure the temps stayed that high?

Was the bark set on the rest of the meat?

Several folks here hook the butt on both rebars, but I never do. I tie it well and double serial hook it onto one rebar, letting the meat self-baste as the fats and juices drip into the fire. I do set it onto the grate when it reaches 160 or so and begins to soften up, for insurance purposes. No dropped meat so far. And I never wrap a PB.

That PBC can get pretty humid. You didn't by any chance have a water pan in there too?

And was it possibly one of the butts that are brined at the packinghouse, or was it just "all pig, all the time"?

Kathryn

[Bootheel]

Hey, y'all. Thanks so much for all the great feedback and questions. Answers below....

1.) Kingsford Blue bag. Loaded the coal basket all the way, then put about 15 lit coals on top. Put the meat on right after dumping the coals.

2.) Bark was set perfect on the rest of the meat (I'll try to attach a pic). Doc, that is a great call on the double serial hook. (I also tied it.)

3.) I used my Maverick 732, run through one of the rebar holes. Even when I took it off the grill 9 hours in (at 203). It was running exactly 300.

4.) No water pan. You are right--that thing gets crazy humid. Very impressive.

5.) I don't think it was a packinghouse brined piece of meat. It was a different brand than I normally buy, but it looked and felt the same way the other ones I have cooked before.

Of course, I didn't think to take a pic of the bottom--we were hungry! But I've got pics of the top. Thanks again for all y'all's help!

[abandonedbrain]

Beauty pic there! I'll note that, using Meathead's Memphis Dust recipe from his book, when mine come out after 10+ hours, they look like meateorites, barely any red on them. Bark is hard all around.

[Jerod Broussard]

I prefer to position mine more "vertical."

[SoCalTim]

I want a PBC, did research and see they go for $350 or so with the drip pan. There's a guy on CL who say's 'I just don't like it' who is selling his for $225 .. think I'm gonna email him and buy it.

[fzxdoc]

Hey, y'all. Thanks so much for all the great feedback and questions. Answers below....

1.) Kingsford Blue bag. Loaded the coal basket all the way, then put about 15 lit coals on top. Put the meat on right after dumping the coals.

Sounds like you may have had a poor light to the coals with only 15 lit coals to start. I never use fewer than 40 lit coals in the chimney for a full basket (load the basket full, then take out 40 coals for the chimney). FWIW, you might want to read up on PBC lighting procedures here

That said, with ave PBC temps like you had, the fire sure seemed to catch up, and the time to reach 203 looks right too.

Honestly, it looks as though you did everything right. If that's the case, time to try again. Maybe you had a PBC Poltergeist making some mischief.

Did it stay in the stall a long time?

Kathryn

[Bootheel]

SoCalTim. Buy it! For sure worth it.

[Jeff_Carley]

Reading from the first to the most current post. #addicted. Im seeing that you guys are trussing your meat. Other than it potentially falling apart once you overcome the stall and start to get super tender, is there any other reason y'all do this? Just wondering if maybe I missed out on some chance to produce better Q.

[Obi-Dan]

I don't truss my pork butts in my PBC.I Use plenty of hooks and wrap an put on the grate after the stall.

[abandonedbrain]

Jeff_Carley Everyone seems to have their own way of cooking pork butts in the PBC here. Which is not a bad thing at all, mind! I just cooked my first butts on my new PBC last weekend. I had two 6.5lb bone-in butts, each with two hooks, each across both rebars. Neither was hog-tied. I even had a beef tenderloin (3lb) going at the beginning (pulled out at about 45-50 minutes at 125F, superb!). Those two butts took 10.25 hours to get to 204F, probe tender at 199F but I wanted that bark hard. I did not wrap; I do not like wet pulled pork. Many people do, that's fine, but not at my house.

At 170F internal in the butts ( ) I pulled the hooks out and set the meat on the included grate to take them the rest of the way up. I honestly think the hooks would have been fine on their own the way I had them, but with the bone in there starting to move around I didn't want to take the chance. So I personally don't see a need to truss, other than being able to skip pulling the meat off to remove the hooks.

Oh, one other reason: once the grate is on, there's no easy way to add briquettes to keep things going. My coals were pretty much finished at around 6-6.5 hours; it was cold-ish (Michigan spring in January, sunny and around 40F) but it was really humid. Humidity seems to be the Achilles heel for the PBC, at least in the cold climate regions. I have a table set up next to the PBC, with a big sheet pan, and I just grabbed the grate and pulled it out, set it over the sheet pan, and added coals. Of course, you also have to pull the rebars out, then put the grate back in and then the rebars... kind of a hassle. Typing it out, I can see the lure of trussing the meat.

Bootheel One question about the meat: did you trim off almost all of the fat? If you had a top cap of fat still on there, that fat's gonna drip down to the bottom of the meat and "hang out", which would keep the bark on the underside wetter than the rest.

I lied, two questions: Did you oil the meat prior to applying the rub, or use any other type of binder for the rub to stick to? Normally I dry-brine for 24-30 hours, then just apply the rub without any "binder"; there's more than enough moisture on the pork to hold the rub well.

[webwolff]

Is 10.25 hours a usual time to get an internal temp of 203F with pork butts?

[abandonedbrain]

webwolff Oh, yes, well, specific to the PBC? It's not uncalled for, but there's volume to consider, ambient heat/humidity, etc. But considering I'd expect up to 15 hours for the same in my Weber kettle? I'll take 10.5 hours, thank you.

[Nate]

something that comes to mind is... Did the meat sag in the center as time went on? Maybe where it created a little curve on the bottom.

My thought is that if the meat started to sag in the center then all of the juices instead of dripping straight off the sides may have started to run down the side then to the bottom side then started dripping. If this was the case then it would maybe explain why the bottom side was sticky. This would have been made worse by the fat being on top because more juice would be running down.

One of the unique things about the PBC is the flavor it creates from the juices dropping on the coals and sizzling back up...
Humidity is necessarily an enemy in the PBC... in fact it is one of the things that helps it power through the stall and helps with some faster cook times.