Does altitude change the cooking time?

[Dave Lewis]

I live at 400 feet elevation and all my bbq'g experience is at home. However, this weekend I hauled my WSM up camping to make bbq'd chicken thighs for the group. We were camping at about 4000 feet. I loaded up the WSM with 30 thighs and kept the temps 250-270 degrees dome temp. However, I severly misjudged the cooking time and had hungry campers waiting on me. At home my thighs usually take 2 hours, but at camp it took 3.5 hours to hit 165 degrees internal temp which was the minimum internal temp for thighs. I would rather the internal temp was higher, but I had to get folks eating. I realize that I was cooking alot more meat than I usually cook which I'm sure played a role in the times, but did the altitude effect the times as well?

 

[Ken McCrary]

Dave, I have no personal experience with this. However, I have a friend that lives in Colorado and cooks competitively in places like Frisco at around 9,000 ft. He assures me that cooking times will lengthen as you go up in altitude

 

[Chet Johnson]

Dave,

My experience with pork butts showed no meaningful difference in time, but then again I am largely rendering fat and connective tissue.

Could it be that with chicken (less fat, more water?), the 10* lower boiling point for water helped keep the meat temperature from getting up to your target as quickly? I would still be surprised if it almost doubled as you describe.

 

[Mark Welte]

I live at 5000 feet and when we cooked at Frisco, CO (9000 feet) we had to add about an hour to all of the cook times. Made our chicken turn in rather eventful. Main reason is due to physics. The air is less dense and there are not as many molecules available to transfer energy to the meat. Kind of the reverse situation of a pressure cooker.
Mark

 

[Owen Layton]

I just had a similar experience this weekend. I smoked two 5lb butts for 18 hrs. My problem seemed to be that I couldnt get the smoker temp to hold at anything more than about 200F. That was at about 7,000 ft. with vents wide open. The opposite of this happened 3 weeks ago at see level in high heat and high humidity. 2 butts took just about 8 hours and I couldnt keep the temp below 275F. This was with the vents almost closed. I'm thinking that this does have to do with the density of the air. Let me know if anyone has any other ideas.

 

[Paul G.]

Let's check with Doug D and see if his cooks take less time than predicted since he actually lives below sea level - New Orleans.

Glad to see you post again Dave. Dave is one of the more knowledgable cooks on the Board.

Paul

 

[Tyler Montague]

Does someone have a chart we can use? I also cooked some butts at 7,000 feet this weekend, and struggled to keep the temperature up, and only achieved an internal temperature of 170 - 175 after almost 19 hours. (They pulled okay anyway, but were fattier than usual.) I assumed it had to do with the air density; I normally cook at 1100 feet with about a 15 hour cook to get 190+. Maybe I'll stop at every 1000 feet of elevation between here and the Mogollom Rim (where I cooked at 7,000) and do a regression on the outcomes. --But I'm hoping someone already has this figured out.

 

[Dave Lewis]

Gee, thanks Paul! My Q'g time has taken a serious decline the last several months. We have been having our house remodeled and my back patio/deck were ripped up and became the staging area for the contractors. So my WSM got pushed aside and stood covered behind piles of dirt, debris and lumber.

Back on topic, I also had my vents open wider than I usually do to maintain temps at 4000 feet. I used sand, so the water boiling point difference wasn't a factor. I suspect altitude played some role in the cook time, but I also think the large amount of meat (30 thighs) in the cooker was a significant factor as well. Everyone got fed, albeit later than planned, and I got a request to cook more chicken for an upcoming birthday party, so it turned out well.

 

[Shawn W]

Jim Minion was kind enough to offer his wisdom on the topic in this recent thread. Looks like altitude is a factor but when he says he addresses it by minor vent changes I don't think it's a huge deal. My cook times are decreasing and I think my difficulties were mainly attributable to: top vent obstruction, a poor thermometer and not running the WSM hot enough. Still takes a long time for me to fire a full chimney though. Hope this helps.