Hit 10 full pork shoulders in one weekend and my offset smoker almost quit on me

I figured I could push my rig to do 10 butts for a church fundraiser here in Austin, but by number 7 the temp had dropped 40 degrees and I was fighting to hold 225. That tenth shoulder took an extra 3 hours just to get to 203 internal. Has anyone else found a hard limit on their smoker's capacity the hard way?

2 comments

2 Comments

knight.diana1mo ago

Huh, ten shoulders. That's a lot of pig. What nobody's talking about is whether your firebox could even breathe properly with that much meat packed in. I had a similar issue with my offset when I overloaded it for a family reunion - turns out the airflow was getting choked because the meat was too close to the stack opening, basically suffocating the fire. Might be worth checking if your pit has enough clearance for that many shoulders, or you're just fighting physics.

emerycarr29d ago

Check your pit's stack clearance first. I learned that the hard way with a 250 gallon tank I built, packed it full of butts for a church fundraiser and the fire kept dying. Turns out the meat was sitting right under the exhaust port, basically blocking all the draw. Rule of thumb I use now is leave at least 6 inches of space between the top of the meat and the stack opening, otherwise you're just creating a low pressure zone that kills your fire. If you've got a baffle plate in there, make sure the smoke path isn't getting pinched too. Might have to stagger the shoulders instead of lining them all up in a row, give that airflow some room to move.