PBC: Hang or Grate?

[JimLinebarger]

I have cooked a few PB and hung them all using 2 hooks, one on one side and hooking the other on the point to get hooks on both sides. However, one time I did forget this. I was doing 2 PB and placing one hook on each end and having each hook on a separate rebar. Unfortunately that was not a good idea since after about 5 hours the PB was getting soft and one of the PB fell on the coals. Now that's a fire!!! After using many 4, 5, and 6 letter words, I pulled that butt off the fire and just removed the burnt portion and finished the cook on the grate.

[tarheeljoe87]

I used to hang everything, every time. Now I've gone the other way and have been doing everything on the grate.

[fzxdoc]

An extra set of hooks is nice if your plan is to load up the PBC, jfmorris . If I'm only doing a few racks, I cut them in half and single hook them. If I'm doing a load in the PBC then I hook low and double serial hook. A double serial hook never hurts--a bit extra insurance in this case is a good thing.

For large pork butts, they're so much nicer cut in half anyway before hooking so there is more surface area for barky goodness. That way you don't have to worry about them hanging too close to the fire. Win-win.

I double serial hook all pork butts, moving them to the grate at about 170°, as I mentioned previously.

So far, knock wood chunks, I haven't had meat hit the fire.

Kathryn

[jfmorris]

So do you wrap your butts at 170, when moving them to the grate? I never wrap on my offset or kettle+SNS. I had been wrapping ribs (3-2-1 method), but last couple of cooks didn't mostly due to sheer laziness.

[fzxdoc]

I don't wrap butts or ribs, jfmorris . I let the ribs hang from beginning to end.