Capt. I put two butts on at 10AM today. Decided to take it slow.......been smoking at 210F for 9 hours. We just hit the 180 plateau.

11 1/2 hours, and I couldn't take it any more. Pulled them off at 195F internal. They fell apart. Vacuumed sealed and in the freezer for fishing season.

cool deal. I am planning on cooking a few sometime soon myself.

I just finished a 24.5 lb turkey last week that I took down to Mardi Gras. I didn't know that people could eat that much turkey...

put two more on today Jon. 12 hours and we are finally at 185. They smell goooooooooooooooooooooooooooood!!!!!!!!!!!

What kind of smoker ya using? I want to get a small one to do ribs, brisket and pork but ocasionally but every time I search for one I always come back to bradley's and don't want to spend all that money.

Big Green Egg, but I don't think you will like the price either.

http://www.biggreenegg.com/

Cook everything from pizza, to steaks at 700F, to pork at 220.

I'm on the same batch of natural lump and hickory as the previous two boston butts. So, that's close to 24 hours of smoking without doing anything but relighting the lump after I shut it down the first time.

Ya those are pretty sweet, here alot of good reviews on them. I am looking at the brinkmann vertical for around 170.00 just a good starter smoker. I have also thought about building my own but the time is a problem lately.

I thought they were all hype and the most ridiculous thing I had ever seen until I started cooking on one. Wish I had bought one a long time ago.

Sandy have you used cherry wood yet with those butts? Something about cherry and pork that just turns out good
Have you ever short cooked your butts by cooking at or around 400 degrees for 2 hours and then double wrap with foil for another two hours and then to the cooler. I have shortened my cooking time and the end result is sooooo good.

Randy

dayum! and I thought 13 hours was long. At about 8 hours I generally can't take it from the smell very much longer.

Sandy,
I took a BB and covered it with mustard and shake covered it with Grippo BBQ seasoning. Put it on the egg at 350 degrees for four hours. Double wrapped it with alum foil and put back on the egg at 300 for two hours. After six hours it was so falling apart inside the foil I had to slide a serving platter under it to get it into the house. MMMMMMMMgood.
Randy

Thanks Randy! I'll give that a try next time. I found BB's on sale for .99/pound last week. I picked up 4 and put them in the freezer. I'm starting to think I'm a BB addict!

I smoked 2 BBs Friday night/Saturday and when I took them off the egg, the coals were still going, so I put 4 whole chickens on there. Something like 25 total cook hours. I've got pork and chicken for DAYS -- need to seal and freeze it tonight.

Something I noticed when cooking is my temp can be higher or lower depending on the wind direction. My lower vent is facing to the east with my house on the south side of the egg. When the wind is out of the NE my temps jump up and vice versa on other wind directions. For the best cooking times you need to clean all the ashes out and make sure the air ways are clear. I can get as mentioned 25+ hours on a low and slow cook. I found a couple of racks of ribs on sale last week and done them up. I'm out of pork seasoning and gotta make a run for some.
Get some cherry wood or chips for that pork Sandy and you will see and taste some amazing flavors.
I just finished a ribeye at 600 degrees and it was coated with some Dizzy Pig steak seasoning. MMMMMMMMMMgood.

Randy

Kookie

I am somewhat in the same boat as you. I can go 14-15 hours on a 200-225 degree smoke but I can never get that cook time in the 20's like these dudes.

Randy -- 10-4 on the cleaning. I always break mine all the way down to clean out all of the vent holes of ash before starting a long cook. I also fill that sucker up with coals - right up to the base of the plate setter if I know I'm going to do a long cook.

Y'all remember, I'm using a BBQ Guru as well. It provides metered air to the egg to keep it at an exact temperature. It has a 10 CFM fan that goes into the lower vent, so that would reduce the chance of breeze/wind affecting the burn (which I'm sure that it does to some extent).

another thing to remember on the long cooks is that the larger pieces of lump are better than the smaller bits. I also mix in a good amount of the chunks of wood that I'm smoking with -- and I don't soak them.

I picked up a bag of Royal Oak at walmart a couple days ago and today I did some burgers. This bag had a lot of huge chunks which I prefer. Half a bag or more was big chunks. Royal Oak is some good stuff but its hit or miss on the big chunks.
I looked at the Guru many times and have seen nothing bad about it. I do as Sandy[my favorite avatar by the way] and spin the egg a little for the prevailing breeze to keep some pressure on my coals.
I noticed my seal is about cooked away today and put that on my lengthy to do list. Captn how long should a seal last with 4-5 cooks per week?
Randy

I'm running the Nomex gasket now too. The others wouldn't last me long at all and they would usually fail at my first high temp cook.

I think that the problem is that all of the grease from the dome eventually finds its way down to the gasket - saturating it in flammible goodness. When the temps get high enough, it ignites and that's the end of the gasket.

After my latest butts and chicken cook on Saturday, I opened up all the vents after I finished cooking to burn everything out. Temps got up to over 750 and the gasket still held strong. I let it go for about 30 minutes at the high temps just to make sure everything was burned out and I kept the lid closed the entire time.

Sorry Randy, but I don't have the contact information. I did e-mail the guy and had the Nomex gasket in like 2 days. That mofo was on his game. I still haven't put it on yet. I use a brick on the handle to keep the gasket nice and sealed on my long smokes. Guess I need to add that to my long list of stuff to do also.

ON EDIT: With the sluth work of Kookie, I figured it out. …………….Bruce Bohannon……….bruce@biggreenegg.com

E-mail that cat right there and tell him a couple of your buddies told you about a super Nomex gasket that was better than the regular gasket.