First Smoke Review - Help Needed


 

Brian B Philly

New member
Hi All,

So about 10 days ago I did my first smoke on my WSM 14in. The final product turned out great but it was a pretty harrowing experience along the way and one I would like to avoid again.

So I bought an 8lb bone-in pork butt from Wegmans. The plan was to serve it on Saturday, Aug 4th around 6pm, so I put it in the smoker at 1230am that morning in order to give it enough time (I was out of town prior so it didn't have anytime to brine, just went right on the smoker. I did put a rub on it thought.). Used the Minion method for the coals and put them in a Weber chimney starter, using the weber lighter cubes, to get them hot. As soon as the coals were hot I dumped them on top of the rest of the coals, put on the pork but, kept the vents wide open, and waited for the tempater to get into that 225-250 range.

Once it got there I adjusted the bottom vents (I kept the top one open the entire time) to try to control the temperature and then went to bed (this was probably around 1 or so). I woke up a few times in the middle of the night to check on things. The temperature flucatued from being a little too hot, to being a little too cold, but nothing crazy. It was also something that could be adjusted for up or down by closing or opening the vents depending on what I wanted. Woke up around 7 to check on things and everything seemed to be in good shape. Did a few things around the house and then around 11 was when things started to happen.

I had reached the stall temperatue but was just planning on fighitng through it. However, the temperature on the smoker dropped to like 190 degrees. I tried opening the vents but it wasn't getting hotter. I tried stirring the coals and that would make it hotter for a moment but then it went down. I tried lighitning new coals and then putting them in, but that didn't do too much either. I had to resort to lighitng new coals with the chimney starter and then funneling those in. That caused the temp to skyrocket, as you would imagine, but even then it would start to come down. Some coals in there that weren't lit wouldn't lit with the introduction. of new coals. All of this was with all the vents wide open. Basically, no matter what I did, the coals wouldn't stay lit and the temperature just kept dropping. It rained a bit but the coals weren't wet because they were inside and the smoker was covered by a large outdoor table umbrella.

To add another new wrinkle, depsite the issues above I was able to continue to cook the pork butt because I was sort of gaming the system. As the pork butt was reaching the temperature at which I wanted to pull it (195 degrees) it randomly started dropping. It was at 189 and moving right along, and then out of nowhere it dropped to 187. I didn't move the thermometer, I wasn't taking the top off and on. Nothing, it just dopped. I have the Maverick ET-733 thermometer. I waited maybe an hour for it to try to rise, but it wouldn't. Finally at like 530pm I just pulled the pork butt off the smoker. It was definitely done as all of the fat melted away, the bone came right out and it pulled apart.

Clearly, despite my final product, I did multiple things wrong. However, I'm not sure what I did wrong, which is why I'm here! Maybe I didn't light the first batch of coals in the chimney starter long enough? When I added newly lit coals they wouldn't catch with coals that I put in there so I'm really not too sure. But the final product was so good, and everyone loved it, that I am going to continue to use my WSM whenever possible. I would just like the cook to be a little less hectic, that's all.

Open to any thoughts and questions and thanks in advance for all of the help!
 
Running out of fuel is first clue. Did you fill to the top of ring with unlit?

"Using minion"-->how many? For a full ring, I'd do 12-15 fully lit (grey ash) and spread 'em around the top of the unlit (some prefer putting them all in the center to start with "coffee can method").

Fewer lit to start with makes controling the temps a lot easier (as you found out when you added "new coals" -->again, that's an issue but how many new lit coals the 2nd time?

Too many changes --stir up, open vents, add unlit/lit makes it difficult to determine reasons but I think the main was too few original unlit ones.

I've not had much success with smokes over 8 hr so others will chime in with their experiences.
 
You didn't mention the water pan. Water? No water? Foiled pan?

Based on your description I'd guess you had ash build up that resulted in air flow problems. It sounds like you had enough charcoal that just didn't want to burn. If it wasn't wet (or hadn't ever gotten wet) then it's probably lack of oxygen. Ash buildup can do that, blocking the vents and just getting in the way of the air flow.

As a general note, if you have a specific target time, I'd suggest aiming to have the meat off the smoker about six hours before that. That will give you time for a long rest and still have some leeway on the finish time. Also, there's no shame in pulling the meat off the smoker and finishing it in the oven. After four or five hours on the smoker it's taken on all the smoke it needs. Beyond that the smoker is just a charcoal-fired oven. If you're having trouble maintaining temp in the smoker, use the oven.
 
Thanks for the response.

I did fill the top of the ring with unlit coals, but looking back on it I'm not sure that the coals were fully lit as there was still some black that I could see (and they weren't all gray ash). I think I then repeated this mistake with the newly lit coals the 2nd time as I was kind of anxious to get coals in there to get the temperature back up (I also wasn't entirely sure what I was doing). So that leads me to another question. For the coals to be fully lit to go into the smoker do they need to be covered completely in gray ash? If using a Weber Chimney starter, do I need to do anything other than light the cube and then let it go to work? About how long does it take?
 
You didn't mention the water pan. Water? No water? Foiled pan?

Based on your description I'd guess you had ash build up that resulted in air flow problems. It sounds like you had enough charcoal that just didn't want to burn. If it wasn't wet (or hadn't ever gotten wet) then it's probably lack of oxygen. Ash buildup can do that, blocking the vents and just getting in the way of the air flow.

As a general note, if you have a specific target time, I'd suggest aiming to have the meat off the smoker about six hours before that. That will give you time for a long rest and still have some leeway on the finish time. Also, there's no shame in pulling the meat off the smoker and finishing it in the oven. After four or five hours on the smoker it's taken on all the smoke it needs. Beyond that the smoker is just a charcoal-fired oven. If you're having trouble maintaining temp in the smoker, use the oven.

Yes, sorry. I forgot about the water pan! Water pan was there and I did keep it filled early on but not as the temp kept dropping.

Also good to know that after around 5/6 hours it's taken all of the smoke it needs. That will certainly help going forward if I get myself into the same situtaion.
 
First, congrats on a successful cook. The meat tasted great. The first cook is usually full of surprises but it gets easier. I share JeyHeyl's thinking - ash build up. Is your heat shield inside the WSM or underneath? I put mine underneath the bottom section to make more room for ash. After 10 hours of cooking you will have a lot of ash in the bowl and it can choke off air flow.

I wired the charcoal ring to the charcoal grate and added U-Bolt handle to the grate so I can empty ash with less hassle. Welding gloves help when handling the hot WSM. .
 
Water in the pan will result in burning much more charcoal. It's great for helping to keep a stable temperature as the water will literally pull heat from the smoker as the water boils, but the heat that goes to boiling the water doesn't go toward cooking the meat. That means burning charcoal and creating ash where the result is boiling water, not smoke and cooked food. I'm not saying you shouldn't use water but be aware it will result in using significantly more charcoal and creating more ash. I think most of the more experienced folks run a dry pan or remove the pan entirely, instead using a ceramic saucer or a pizza pan as a heat shield, and controlling the temperature purely with the vents and the amount of charcoal.

The other thing is if you foil the pan before adding the water, the water can work its way through any tears, small holes, or the seam if you have to join two pieces of foil. As the pan heats up that water starts to boil and move about with a great deal of energy. It can find its way up the sides of the pan and over the edge into the fire. And once wet, charcoal briquettes usually don't want to burn at all. You didn't mention if you foiled the pan so I'm just mentioning this in case. If I'm using water, which I almost never do anymore, I don't foil the pan. If I'm running a dry pan I use a single sheet of heavy duty foil and depress it just a couple inches in the center. This allows it to hold whatever grease might come off the meat and one sheet still reaches edge to edge. I used to use two sheets but the grease always worked its way through the seam and I had a mess in the pan anyway. The single sheet much better accomplishes my goal of easy cleanup.
 
First, congrats on a successful cook. The meat tasted great. The first cook is usually full of surprises but it gets easier. I share JeyHeyl's thinking - ash build up. Is your heat shield inside the WSM or underneath? I put mine underneath the bottom section to make more room for ash. After 10 hours of cooking you will have a lot of ash in the bowl and it can choke off air flow.

I wired the charcoal ring to the charcoal grate and added U-Bolt handle to the grate so I can empty ash with less hassle. Welding gloves help when handling the hot WSM. .

Thank you! My heat shield was inside the WSM so to your point there is less room for the ash to go during the cook. Do you have a picture of how you wired your charcoal?
 
Water in the pan will result in burning much more charcoal. It's great for helping to keep a stable temperature as the water will literally pull heat from the smoker as the water boils, but the heat that goes to boiling the water doesn't go toward cooking the meat. That means burning charcoal and creating ash where the result is boiling water, not smoke and cooked food. I'm not saying you shouldn't use water but be aware it will result in using significantly more charcoal and creating more ash. I think most of the more experienced folks run a dry pan or remove the pan entirely, instead using a ceramic saucer or a pizza pan as a heat shield, and controlling the temperature purely with the vents and the amount of charcoal.

The other thing is if you foil the pan before adding the water, the water can work its way through any tears, small holes, or the seam if you have to join two pieces of foil. As the pan heats up that water starts to boil and move about with a great deal of energy. It can find its way up the sides of the pan and over the edge into the fire. And once wet, charcoal briquettes usually don't want to burn at all. You didn't mention if you foiled the pan so I'm just mentioning this in case. If I'm using water, which I almost never do anymore, I don't foil the pan. If I'm running a dry pan I use a single sheet of heavy duty foil and depress it just a couple inches in the center. This allows it to hold whatever grease might come off the meat and one sheet still reaches edge to edge. I used to use two sheets but the grease always worked its way through the seam and I had a mess in the pan anyway. The single sheet much better accomplishes my goal of easy cleanup.

Never even thought about running it with a dry pan because I was so focused on being able to control the temperature and didn't think about the unitended consequences (I didn't foil the pain this time, just put water straight into the pan). I like the idea of running a dry pan, with foil to make clean up easy and just controlling the temperature strictly with the vents. It sounds like the large amount of ash was my main problem and this is one good way to alleviate that so I can just focus on the smoke cooking the meatn.
 

 

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