Slow cooking a pork butt on the grill

[spinsheet]

It was a huge success. Many thanks to all of you for all of the great advise. We had 5 kids and 4 adults and have PLENTY left over.

At about 6 the center was still only reading about 160 (after cooking since 10AM) so I kind of pulled it apart (ever so slightly) while on the gill and then put the lid back on. I needed to do something to avert an ugly riot. Lots of hungry people and cucumbers and dip were not working. Anyway, that got her cooked so I pulled it off, shredded it, and added the Carolina BBQ to the pork and all was right with the world.

Would this snake method also work while cooking ribs for 2 hours? Maybe just a shorter snake? My ribs have been getting overcooked and dried out and now that I have thermometers and can see what the heat was reading I know why.

Also, as I mentioned before the bottom vent flanges are no longer making contact with the grill bottom so they are not closing off the vents completely when closed. Is this natural or do I need to replace them? They used to make contact but now all three of then flare upward a bit.

Anyway, my first pork butt on the grill was a huge success!

[1buckie]

 
glad it came out well !!!

Cucumbers wouldn't cut it,eh?

Try sausages or ABT's next time......if you've just got the one kettle, that means you'll have to get busy on Craigslist, garage sales & stuff.....more is better.......

With the vents, either replace.....the new ones are stainless & will probably last longer, but also are thinner, so be careful if you have chunks of charcoal (or fallen meat ) down in the bottom when you go to clean out.....they'll bend easier.......other thing is take apart the ones you have in & bend them back slightly, if they're still in decent shape that works fine.....remember: they go together in a certain order, so keep track of how they come apart.......

I seen your other thing about ribs......
Common times for me are

BB's...2-1/2 to3-1/2

St.Louis...3-1/2 to 4-1/2

Full, big spares.....5-1/2 ~ 6

At ~~250~260 deg

Ribs are still pork & have some of those same fat components that your pork butt does....they need TLC also....

[One Touch Platinum]

Glad to hear that it came out great! Yes you can and should use the snake method to do your ribs. It will let you do low temp for 2 hours easy as you now know....just use less charcoal...smaller snake. I have a Rib-O-Lator that is basically this big ridiculous ferris wheel attachment for my rotisserie , which is great by the way.....I use my sloppy snake method when I do ribs with it....I just have to adjust my semi-circle so that it doesn't get too direct to the ribs....it works great. I do a variation on the 3-2-1 method. Did you ask for all this info? Oh well , you are going to get it anyway! I do 3 hours of indirect heat, 2 hours of indirect heat with the ribs wrapped in foil with some form of liquid in the foil....I use BBQ sauce but you can use butter or fruit juice or whatever you like.  And I take the wrapped ribs off the heat and let rest for at least 45 minutes or very close to an hour. The ribs come out super tender...too tender for competition but fall off the bone is how we like it here. Open foil and serve. For indirect low and slow on a kettle the snake or some variation of it is the best way to get low sustained heat that I have found....I have not had much success with the Minion method although some people swear by it.

[1buckie]

This is kind of a modified snake for ribs.......not the only way, but works decent......

http://weberkettleclub.com/forums/grilling-bbqing/one-rib-method/