Ledge Prime slow cook time

[jeremiah_h]

Did a longer smoke on my new Ledge Prime this weekend of a 9lb pork butt and it took a whooping 23 hours. I'm guessing the oven temp on the on board controller is way off but I've not been able to check it yet. From the graph, it doesn't look like it was struggling to keep up temps and I did end up with a good pork I just don't know what was off. Oh, and the window is completely useless, it was covered in soot after a few hours. Previous experience was on a Akorn and I never had anything that took this long. Also did confirm that the meat probe was accurate with my instant read, so I know I didn't over or under cook it (I know that from the end result too!)

[RonB]

What temp were you using for the cook? Some people go as high as 350°, butt I like 275°.

[RonB]

I suggest only an hour or two at 225°.

[TripleB]

RonB - Why only an hour or two? 225° too low for the whole cook, 225° to just set the bark, 225° to bring the meat up to temp? Interested in your reason.

[RonB]

Your protein will only absorb smoke for a limited time and 2 hours should do it.

[Huskee]

Two tips-

1) Cut that butt in half, no need to cook a whole 9lber. Two 4.5lbers might reduce your time some, plus it will get you 2 more surfaces for rub, smoke and bark!
2) Did you wrap it? That timing sounds like you cooked it unwrapped the whole time. I suggest wrapping once it hits about 180 or so. There will be good bark by then, and wrapping will save you about half that time. After it gets to ~200-210 internal, and you let it hold for 1-2 hrs to further soften, you can unwrap and place back in the smoker nekkid to firm the bark back up if you wish, but it's not really needed if you wrap later on after the stall range of 150-170.

FWIW I do the above and butts take me 12hrs at 250ish without fail, and that includes the 1-2 hr hold time after it hits my target temp.

[jeremiah_h]

I know the Akorn is a different beast but I've never had to wrap on it. I'll give that a try with the next one. I generally do a bone in so I don't know if I can cut it close to evenly but I'll try

[Huskee]

You can, just cut at an angle, it doesn't matter if it's not perfect it's just a hunk of meat. I typically only do bone-in butts. Just something new to try, you might like it. jeremiah_h

[Sean99403]

My Jim Bowie and all the other GMG except the Davey Crocket do not run off the internal temperature of the grill. This used to bug the crap out of me, it may show it is 225 but the actual temp may only be 205. The issue is the ambient air sensor it uses to calculate a temperature that is displays and runs at. I do not understand this, makes no sense to me. When my PID died after a few years I replaced the entire hopper with a Pellet Pro hopper, GMG is proprietary, this fixed it and I loved it after that.

[jeremiah_h]

Just thought I would circle around and let myself know that the smoker was off 100 F at 300 F. I've adjusted it up so that now it's 225 when set to 300, yay!

[RichardK]

jeremiah_h All my Butts take over 2 hours per pound. I just did one last week. Start was 5.8 pounds, bone-in, Duroc Butt. Well trimmed, I like bark and so all the fat cap goes. Took 16.5 hours on the WSM, which is 2.8 hours/pound. I cook at 230-240 degrees until last couple hours when I increase temps to 250 or higher. I am confident in my temps. I use ThermoWorks probes and occasionally verify with my Thermopen.