after 15 good butts, I ruined one

40 caliber

40 caliber

Member
I thought i had this down.  I have done close to 15 pork butts with perfection. this past week, I did a 7lb boneless butt (most butts in the area are boneless). I did the DM brine for 9 hours, applied the mustard and rub as i had so many times before. it went in 9pm at 235 . i wanted it done in the early morning.

I had some trouble trying to start the 3D. Outside temp was in the 40s and the box read 45 and the meat read 70-49 fluctuating when it went in. it kept shutting off. I shut off and restarted a couple times.  after waiting a while it worked. i dont know if the probe was in shock going from 70 degree house to a 45 degree butt but i highly doubt it. It did seem however that after the probe found the butt temp it started. I had adjusted the butt a couple times in the shelf restabbing the probe trying to figure out what was going on. Not sure if that had an impact.

checked it at 10:30pm and it was at 147 in 1.5 hours. the box temp was only 175 but sometimes takes a while to climb but the internal temp seemed way too high so quickly. It seemed like it was going fast but i have been fooled before. turned it down to 230 and went to bed. My son heard the 3rd ring "END" at 1am. he didn't know anything about it so he didnt want to wake me.
I got up at 430 to check it. it was off and box was cold when i opened it. put it on the counter and temped it at 133. The bark was extremely tough. when i opened it up,

something went wrong because no 7lb butt should ring done in four hours

i found some rub that had not carmelized and part of the butt looked more like pork tenderloin than pork to pull. Well good thing it was a $2 a lb pork butt and not a Brisket!!

doing a post mortem but have not figured it out. Some theories I have:
1. some of the wood was white ash powder. would combustion have done this?
2. I had used a model 2 rack in my 3 for easier clean up. I wonder if i put it in too far and the butt stabbed the box thermometer?

3. probe has since worked fine on some smoked chicken breast so it wasn't that. It has also worked well on time without the probe.

4. the probe was in too far and reading the other side of the meat? - I doubt it as i am usually really careful. it was quite dark out. maybe the probe pulled back when i adjusted the shelf

I may never know but open to any other thoughts oh mighty pitmasters!
 
Seems like a lot of fuss and worry over a $2 piece of meat. Regardless of the cost of the meat, turn the machine on and leave it alone. constantly fussing with it and changing things invites mistakes and introduces variables that are difficult to account for later.

Do enough smokes and some will fail even without us inviting disaster. Quit worrying about it.
 
I've woken up in the middle of the night to find that my Auber has jumped to the next program way before it should and I assumed it was because of a faulty reading in a probe.  Your starting meat probe issues would make me think you suffered the same fate.  Did you just have one program in your smoke set up?  Always put a second program in for warming as a safety to keep heat going in case program 1 goes off while you are sleeping. 
 
Hi Pork belly, i didn't fuss with it at all after it got started. Its a 3D and i just read the meter.  Granted it's a $2 a lb piece of meat and i didn't care that  much either.  I was trying to see if there was a lesson here. I am getting ready to do a  Brisket and prefer not to have to learn on an $80 piece of meat.

Super Dave- thanks , do you think it's the probe? it worked fine on a follow up roast and chicken however.  I dont use any other programs. I guess i could have put a 2-3 hour warming cycle after.
 
Tom, I bought a replacement probe and have experienced the same issues. What I've learned is that if readings are odd or jumpy out of the chute don't ignore it. Once the readings look and act right it seems to lock in and perform as expected. For me, it means I can't flip the switch and crawl directly into bed. I usually stay up an hour to assure everything is acting normally. Always check the plug on the probe that plugs into the Auber, the housing tends to get loose. I don't know if it has any impact but I always  make sure that it is tightly threaded to the probe body.
 
thanks Dave. good to know. i will check the probe. exactly what i was looking for. just trying to make sure i didn't miss anything.
less disapointed with the loss of cost of the butt vs the outstanding mouthwatering cue!!!
 
Tom, I mourn the loss of any smoke meat!  Not the cost, but the loss of culinary satisfaction! >:(

From the sounds of it, I think it's very possible you were either up against the box probe, or you skewered it.  Been there, done that (sad to admit).  The other thing could be that it needed a "reset."  When you saw the meat temp at 147 that quick, you could have killed power and restarted it.  Hey, these are computer boards and sometimes they get "glitchy." 

Since you've used the probe after, I don't think it's bad.  But, you may want to test your meat probe with ice water and boiling water to see if you get 32 & 212. 

This is one of the reasons I rarely do overnight smokes!  I'm just too afraid Murphy is going to show up and ruin my dinner!  If I do an overnighter, I use a remote thermometer (my Fireboard) that will alarm my phone if it gets out of whack!
 
DivotMaker said:
SconnieQ said:
Would a couple extra food probes be too much to ask too? ;)
Click to expand...

I'll pass the suggestion on to Steve.  Not a bad idea, to at least ship one extra.
Click to expand...

I was thinking more along the lines of using them simultaneously. Like multiple ports. I always use 2 probes per hunk of meat, just in case I get bad probe placement, or a goofy probe reading. Don't know if Auber supports multiple food probes.
 
I could see multiple food probes being problematic for programming.  One would have to be the primary and the others just readout ports. 
 
DivotMaker said:
SuperDave said:
I could see multiple food probes being problematic for programming.  One would have to be the primary and the others just readout ports.
Click to expand...

Bingo.  I agree.
Click to expand...

Aha! I get it. Because the food probe information is controlling the program, and in turn controlling the smoker... Hmmm... if there were multiple probes with an app, then in theory you could control your smoker from the app, and override the primary probe, or programming altogether, if for example one of the "readout-only" probes was giving you information that you wanted to act upon. So I still see value in multiple probe ports, with a primary port, and maybe 3 "readout only" ports. Or maybe there are 4 ports, and you can choose through the app or controller which port you want to use as the primary port. Or maybe the Auber is already complicated enough LOL! ;D Not that Smokin-It is manufacturing their own digital controller...or are they...? 8)
 
I think it would be nice if it came with an extra probe. i already bought one of those as a back up. With an Eagle scout in the house one has to "be prepared"  (that  would be my son, not me)

I will say it is  problematic to the user to have 2 probes. when i first got the 3D, i used the maverick to test the box temp and the meat to the 3D.

what ended up happeining was there was enough difference between the 2, i had no idea what the  temp was  ;D

now i just check with the 3D and leave it at that.

 
I just tried another 7.5lb butt . trying to figure out the  fast cook times. i am not really sure but  this  one was moving fast as well. i brined it for 25 hours ( just when i got around to pulling it out) then i applied the rub and put it in the smoker at 235 with an outside temp of 30 degrees F. It was 830pm and i figured it was at least an 8 hours smoke, all woudl be ok. within 3 hours the temp was already at 155 and i was getting concerned i was going to have  a repeat of the last time. I  opened the door and repositioned the probe. when i close the door, i turned the  temp down to 215 for the night. the 3D was trying to correct for the rush of cold air and jumped to 275!  it then settled  in to 215. i woke up at 130 and 330 am to check on it and it was staying steady below 180. i pulled at 5am  and about 9 hours. at 193.

if i had not turned it down this would have been a 6-8 hour cook. doesn't that sound fast? could brining really sped it that much? i usually get 11+ hours at 235 on a 7lb but. I am not sure why these last couple seem to be going so quick.

by the way, the butt was perfect and pure heaven
 
Tom, I have had the same thing happen to me.  I brine from anywhere 4 to 30ish hours then a good rinse, dry, and rub.  I put the butts (usually around 8.5-9.5 pounds) in the smoker about midnight and they are ready the next afternoon.  I had one treated the same as all the others and my IT hit about 6:30am.  WAY faster then any others I had smoked.  It was good but like you I wondered if brining longer had anything to do with the short time.
 
155 is no time to panic. Meat rises quickly in the beginning. Rising to 155 in that amount of time is not at all unusual. You were no where near the stall. I think if you had just left it alone, without opening the door, turning it down, etc., it would have ended up completing the cook in about the same amount of time. Once it got to 165 or so, it would have stopped rising so quickly. It would probably sit in the 165-180 range for SEVERAL hours, probably not going up more than and few degrees, and the temp might even go down for a while. This is one of the things I see most commonly, is panic at the quick rise in the first few hours.
 
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