Why does nobody talk about how bad pork shoulder temps stall when its raining?

Was doing a 14lb butt on my offset last Saturday and it started raining about 4 hours in. That thing stalled at 165 for almost 3 hours. Wrapped it in butcher paper finally but the bark got all soft. Ever notice how humidity messes with your cook way more than the temp? Anyone else deal with this?

3 comments

3 Comments

jake_torres6823d agoMost Upvoted

Aaron Franklin talked about this on his podcast once, said humidity creates a vapor barrier on the meat that makes the stall way worse. I read somewhere that higher moisture in the air means less evaporation from the pork, so the temp just sits there longer. You gotta compensate by bumping up your fire temp or wrapping earlier when it starts raining.

sageadams22d ago

Is it weird how much cooking mirrors life like that? Seems like every time things start going good something like weather or some other outside factor just throws a wrench in the whole process and you have to figure out a new way to get through it.

grantf7322d ago

That bit about "vapor barrier" from jake_torres68 is what finally clicked for me. I used to be one of those guys who swore the rain didn't matter, thought it was all in people's heads. But after my last butt turned into a 4 hour stall and the bark turned to mush, I had to admit I was wrong. I guess the science makes sense, if the air is already full of moisture, the meat can't sweat as fast to cool itself down. Next time I see rain in the forecast, I'm just going to wrap it at 150 and call it a day.