BBQ Cooking Time vs Finishing Temps

[john_setzler]

Greetings to the group...

I have been thinking a lot lately about BBQ (Butts/Brisket) cooking techniques, especially after watching Matt Pittman's recent video on the weeknight brisket. Here's an observation I have made quite a few times when cooking Boston butts:

Every now and then a butt will take a really long time to cook. Much longer than you would normally expect. It seems like the stall is never going to pass. And when it does, you end up in a second stall somewhere between 180-190°F. This has happened to me 3 or 4 times in the past. When this happens, I have noticed one significant characteristic in the meat. The meat IS probe tender somewhere between 180-190°F during that second stall. When this happens, I am usually at or north of 2 hours per pound in the 225-250°F cooking temperature range. When the meat was probe tender, I took it off, wrapped, and rested it just like I would any other cut of bbq meat. All was fine and the meat was perfect even though those butts never saw an internal temp that you would normally see in finished meat.

Having had these experiences, I tried to use it to my advantage when I decided to cater my own wedding a couple years ago. I bought eight 8-9-lb boston butts. I put them on my pellet grill after seasoning them and I let them smoke at 225-ish for 4 or 5 hours. I wrapped them up as tightly as I could in foil and then put them back on the grill. I lowered the grill temp to 190°F and let them ride for another 12 or 13 hours. I put them into the cooler and hauled them to the wedding site. When it was time to eat, these things just fell apart and were super tender, never having seen an internal temp above 190°F.

This technique makes the 'weeknight brisket or butt' concept seem quite easy. In Matt's video, he seasoned a brisket and put it on a Traeger at 190°F at about 6pm one evening. He came back out at around 6am and wrapped it in butcher paper and put it back on the grill. He monitored the meat temp remotely. When his brisket reached 190°F internally, he ramped the temp up to 250 to go ahead and bring the meat temp up to 203ish. Then he put the Traeger in keep warm mode at 165 until he was ready to pull the meat off. it was basically a 24 hour cook process. Here's that video:

https://youtu.be/uxkU-I7e63E

Based on my experience, I believe this technique is possible without ramping the temp up and taking the meat to 203ish. I believe it can be left at 190. I intend to give it a try. I am currently running a test on my Kamado to see if I can run it at 190 for 24 hours without a fuel reload. I'm fairly sure that I can but I have to test it first

Thoughts?

[TNPIGBBQ]

It sounds like you’re doing a modern version of a Hawaiian lua pig, where they wrap it in banana leaves and bury it in the ground to steam cook in its own juices.

I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.

[DeusDingo]

i always saw the temp guide as training wheels to bbq. pull at 203 until you get some experience under your belt. easy. then you learn to pull it when it's done, the temp just tells you when you start checking for "done"

[Jerod Broussard]

I've pulled Select briskets at 190 at about midnight, packed in a Cambro, and served the next day at lunch.

[mountainsmoker]

Temp is just a thing. As long as you get the meat above the danger point of 140 in a reasonable period of time any combination of temp and time will work. Here they prefer a cook temp above 200. So experiment with what you are doing and keep notes so you can look back and see what worked best. Go low, 200, go high, 275, which is where I cook my butts and briskets. They fly through the stall and I then wrap.

[tbob4]

It seems logical. I have many times brought pork to the stall with the intent of putting it on low in a crock pot the next day. The results are good. Not quite the same as fully smoked beginning to end but it is quite good.

[smokin fool]

This is what we have been doing with the last few buts we've done.
We get it on the smoker early enough it goes to the crock pot the same day

[Polarbear777]

Certainly works. Collagen breaks down and the meat gets tender at a wide range of temperatures given enough time. It just so happens that ~203F is about the temperature a butt will reach at the same time that process is complete when cooking at common BBQ oven temps. At 190, it just takes a little longer. The finishing test isn't temperature, it's tenderness by feel or probe or pulling/shredding.

I do SV, SVQ or QVQ on tough meats and 135F will tenderize just as well but it takes ~72 hours.

I've long wanted a temperature/time curve for this so you could predict tenderness time at any cooking temp between 131F (sous vide/water bath) and 350F (air in smoker), but it's hard to get good data without lots of long cooks with well controlled variables (same type, cut, and thickness of meat, humidity control etc.). Basically the best is to guess based on experience and actually handle or probe to determine when tenderness is achieved.

[GirlGrilling]

john_setzler Great post. I watched that same video from Matt; my only concern with walking away is — my old Traeger used to overfill the fire pot, four hours into every cook. So it was never "set it and forget it," much less head across town for 8 hours (though in our town, he’s only 8 minutes from home). But no pellet grill is truly "set it and forget it" — at least none that I’ve seen; they all run the risk of flame-outs.

Agree w/you — he could have stayed at 190 w/no problems. But to your point, re when is the brisket done — I’m sitting here at 4:30AM wondering what to do with a 13 lb. beautifully-marbled brisket I pulled two hours into a 165 stall and wrapped w/butcher. It’s back out there at 250, and after about 2 hours, has gone to 183 (my probe is in the flat, but close to the point). I couldn’t start my cook any lower because my temporary grill is just not giving off good smoke. But that’s another long story.

When I pulled it to wrap, I lost some bark and of course, part of my soul. (This was the first time I used olive oil vs. nothing, as a binder, FWIW). I probed it just before wrapping and it was very close to butter-tender everywhere, though the temps ranged from 165 to 203. So now I’m pondering what to do ... take it off and cambro/oven it now? Or lower the temp a bit (which I’m reluctant to do, due to the poor smoke quality, even though it’s wrapped)? I just went down to 225 while I ponder this.

Maybe someone out there is awake already, getting ready for LSU to beat Alabama, and has a suggestion. And any tips for preserving the bark when you’re pulling it to wrap would sure be appreciated. Mine had been on for well over six hours and yet I still lost some bark. I’m thinking never again the olive oil.

[GirlGrilling]

Update — just pulled it at 189. Butter-tender everywhere. Have it resting in oven, still wrapped, at 175. Cut sliver off of the thinnest part of the flat. Smoke ring looks decent and bark is intact; meat is a bit dry on that end, of course. Any suggestions while it rests in the oven — unwrap, leave wrapped? — would be most welcome.

[HawkerXP]

I would guess unwrapping would possibly dry out your meat.

[tbob4]

I would leave it wrapped. Nice job!

[LA Pork Butt]

I like to wrap at 200 and put them in an ice chest with old towels for at least two hours. It seems to allow me to remove the excess fat that separates the various muscles,

[Red Man]

Once it’s wrapped you shouldn’t unwrap until you’re ready to slice and serve.

[mountainsmoker]

Agree do not unwrap until ready to serve.

[GirlGrilling]

Thanks, guys. I left it wrapped as you suggested. Came out pretty well. Not a home run, but decent enough.

[Big Willie]

Here is my take on IT vs time and I might be WAY WRONG but...
Large hunks-o-meat (like butts and brisket) have a lot of fat, collagen and connective tissue that needs to completely down for the roast to be juicy and tender.
That process doesn't start till the roast gets to an IT of 160°F...
I think the thing that determines "doneness" is the length of time the roast is over the minimum temp required to break everything down not what temp it rises to.
The reason an IT of 203° is generally accepted as a finish IT for butts is not the.magic of 203° but the length of time the roast was over 160°.
As an example...let's say generally it takes 5 hours at a CC temp of 250° for the butt to get to 203°...it isn't 203° that's important...it is the 5 hours in the "breakdown zone"...
To justify my opinion...
I've experienced this smoking hot and fast vs. low and slow...
Hot and fast butts power through from 160° to 203° much quicker than at low and slow temps...at the same time my butts are never probe tender at 203° going hot and fast; they almost always need to go to over 210°...my opinion is they haven't had enough time over 160° to break everything down.
in reverse, I've gone low and slow with pit temps never exceeding 220° and had perfect probe tender butts at 195°- 197°...my opinion why they were done at 197° instead of 210°...
because they were in "the breakdown zone" long enough they didnt need to get to 210°.
Hope that makes some sense.
Walt.