British BBQ Society Forums

Hi All - I have treated the family (well, me I guess!) and ordered a 4kg Boston Butt that will be delivered on Friday, with the plans to cook it on Saturday for Saturday night....I plan to cook at arounf 225-250f on my Kamado Big Joe. This is substantially bigger than any other Pork Shoulder I have cooked before, so does anybody have any suggestions on how long this will approximately take. I realise it is not set in stone, but just wanted to see if I could get a guesstimate??
Also anybody had a Boston Butt from Tom Hixson and how it came out?

Hi,

Yes, I've done one of those also on my KJ Big Joe so am hopefully fairly well placed to give you some info. I cooked mine at 225 for the majority of the cook but I did it overnight as I wanted it ready to go for 12 noon the following day. I put it on at 8pm the night before and had to wrap it at the end to get it ready on time so in total it took around 16 hours.

I didn't plan to wrap it as I like really good bark on a Boston Butt but you could do and that would speed it up a fair bit.

Whilst BB's aren't the heaviest pieces of meat they are thick and that's what makes them take so long. I would give yourself 16 hours to cook it and if it cooks quicker than that then wrap it in foil and a towel and put it in a cold oven or a cool box if you've got one and it will stay warm for a few hours.

It will also likely stall hard if you're cooking it at 225 so don't panic when that happens and just let it ride.

When I do my next one I will probably try it at 275 to see how much quicker it cooks but I haven't tried that before so can't advise on whether its better or not.

As for how it came out - best one I've ever done! Took it to a six nations super saturday party and it was gone in about 20 minutes lol.

Excellent, I will probably put it on late on Friday night or get up around 4am and put it on and take it from there.

Looking forward to see how it works and tastes.

Thanks for your advice, I'll let you know how it makes out!

Sory, one other question as I have never done an overnight cook.....Did you have to keep checking the temp? I have a maverick to keep an eye on the meat and grill temp, but wondered if you just set it up and left it once the temp stabalised? Cheers

Dduffs71 wrote:Sory, one other question as I have never done an overnight cook.....Did you have to keep checking the temp? I have a maverick to keep an eye on the meat and grill temp, but wondered if you just set it up and left it once the temp stabalised? Cheers

I have a maverick too so I set it to go off if the temp of the grill dropped below 200 or above 240. It woke me up once at around 4am to say it was at 199f. I put this down to a cold night so just opened the top vent a touch more and went back to bed. It was fine from then until I got up around 6ish.

From my experience once they are settled at a certain temp they are very stable.

For Boston Butts I usually use the calculation of 1.5 hrs per pound/500g - so 4kg would usually take around 12 hours at 225-250F.

Of course equipent and meat are different so use as a guide and alter accordingly.

I agree the Maverick is an excellent piece of kit.

Thanks guys, for the valuable words of wisdom......I am now leaning towards setting my alarm for 4am (ish) and cooking from that time, in the hope that it is done for around 7-8pm

Dduffs71 wrote:Thanks guys, for the valuable words of wisdom......I am now leaning towards setting my alarm for 4am (ish) and cooking from that time, in the hope that it is done for around 7-8pm

Sounds good - a 12 to 16 hour window for one of those butts is a good time frame I think and as said if it cooks faster then hold it in a cooler if it takes longer then so be it.

Too late now, but I agree, 14 hours should be fine. Wrap if you feel stall is taking too long. If at temp too early wrap tightly in foil and then two or three towels and in a good quality cool box...will keep hot for up to 4 hrs in my experience.

How's it going so far?

Does it have the money muscle on the end? Just wonder how authentic a cut it is?

I keep looking at those butts as they seem about the best value thing on the site.