Pork Tenderloin Mishap


 
Rusty James

Rusty James

TVWBB Emerald Member
Thought I had gotten enough experience under my belt by now, but I guess I was wrong.

Had a lot of meat to smoke today, including two butts, so I pulled out the 18" smoker for a change. I set it up Minion style using a single layer of Royal Oak briquettes around hickory wood, and filled the rest of ring with Weber coals. After dumping the lit, I set everything up and waited for the temps to rise to around 225 or higher, but that wouldn't happen for the three to four hours later.

Thinking I would be OK (since I was using mostly Weber coals), I loaded the two butts and went about my business. Three hours later, white smoke was still present, and the temps were barely above 200°. Figuring all was well, I loaded two tenderloins on either side of the top butt, and pulled them about an hour later. My wife had the table spread by then, so we served up the tenderloin along with her veggies. Unfortunately, the tenderloins tasted like bad charcoal odor. :rolleyes: I checked the grill for creosote, but it was not present, so smoldering charcoal had to be the culprit.

My only guess is not letting the smoker come up to temp sooner. We had 10 MPH winds all day, but I protected the smoker with reflectix. From now on, I may tilt the lid a bit at the start so I can get temps high enough to burn off white smoke sooner if I'm using briquettes.

After pulling the tenderloins, and washing the grate, the rest of the meat (mostly sausages) did real well.

Am I the only one that has this problem with charcoal?
 
I've never had that happen, I've always had trouble getting the temps to stay down in my 18" I'd like to see what the experts have to say.
 
It was most unusual, Mark. I used to have creosote problems in the past, but I remedied that by placing smoke wood on the bare grate instead of placing it on top. However, this wasn't a creosote problem. I confirmed this by swiping the top grill with a wet finger and tasting it. Creosote leaves a yellowish stain on the meat and grill, and has a strong tar-like taste to it as well. None of these were present.

I will make sure smoker temps are above 225 from now on before adding meat.
 
When my temp has been slow to come up it's been because I didn't add enough lit. Your outside air temp is a lot cooler now so (stupid question) have you increased the amount of lit you're using? Sorry, I had to ask. I think you diagnosed the taste problem properly.
 
Lew Newby said:
When my temp has been slow to come up it's been because I didn't add enough lit. Your outside air temp is a lot cooler now so (stupid question) have you increased the amount of lit you're using? Sorry, I had to ask. I think you diagnosed the taste problem properly.
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Agreed!

However, in my case, I added at least 1/4 to 1/3 chimney of lit, so I could probably scratch that off list. The lit was comprised of leftover Kingsford, and a few Royal Oak briquettes. UNLESS, the Kingsford choked down the fire somewhat, but that's just a guess, and maybe not even a good one.

Been a while since I used the 18" WSM, I'm so used to the little guy now. Maybe I'll go back to Royal Oak lump for the big smoker and Weber for the little smoker. Briquettes gave me low temp problems in the past anyway, so I switched to lump for the 18" WSM two years ago with good success.
 
I've never had a low temp problem with my 18 using KBB. Most of the time it's the other way around. I have one of the small Weber chimney and I use 14 briquets. Then I scatter them evenly over the top of the pile. Good to go every time.
 
~Mark~ said:
I've never had a low temp problem with my 18 using KBB. Most of the time it's the other way around. I have one of the small Weber chimney and I use 14 briquets. Then I scatter them evenly over the top of the pile. Good to go every time.
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I hear you.

I've had problems with blue bag Kingsford in my 18" WSM from the start, so I switched to lump. I prefer smoking temps in the 250 to 275 range, and I just couldn't get that with briquettes. Omitting H2O in the water pan would help raise temps no doubt, but I'm a water man for now. :wsm:

(note to self, smoke a waterless butt one day)
 
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Now that you mentioned it I have noticed that when I use leftover Kingsford in the chimney sometimes my temps come up slower. I stopped using water about 5 years ago so my temps do come up quicker and I cook in the 250 to 275 range using KBB. All 3 sizes of my WSMs get those temps and higher with KBB. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with lump but I'm a cheap old fart. :wsm:
 
Both times I've run into this the common element is that I used a previously open bag of charcoal, which had not been enclosed. My suspicion is that the humidity got into the coals and had an adverse affect on temperatures. Ran into this with both KBB and Weber charcoal, normally I'm good about using a new bag, or a bag that was sealed back up after opening.
 
I wouldn't use leftover coal to start the smoker up again. You want good dense hot burring coals when you dump them on to a pile of cold unlit coal. If they are used then the temps wont be as high and they wont burn as long. You need hot coal temp if you want it to burn clean.
 
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JBooker said:
I wouldn't use leftover coal to start the smoker up again. You want good dense hot burring coals when you dump them on to a pile of cold unlit coal. If they are used then the temps wont be as high and they wont burn as long. You need hot coal temp if you want it to burn clean.
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Thanks, I'll keep they in mind, JB.

The leftover Kingsford coals weren't that many (enough to fill the bottom about two layers deep), so I opted to add the Royal Oak briqs (maybe 7 to 10?), and I let the fire get good and hot with flames shooting out the top of the chimney.

Maybe humidity-laced charcoal played a role in slow pit temps? Dew points have been in the 70's for many days since Nate passed through. Extended humidity usually isn't the case this late in the year. October is mostly cool and brisk.
 
Rusty James said:
I've had problems with blue bag Kingsford in my 18" WSM from the start, so I switched to lump. I prefer smoking temps in the 250 to 275 range, and I just couldn't get that with briquettes. Omitting H2O in the water pan would help raise temps no doubt, but I'm a water man for now. :wsm:
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I think you're basically trying to swim upstream against a strong current when combining higher desired temps with water in the pan. My 18" WSM wants to stay at 240F when I have water in the pan. It's just the physics of the situation. The water is an enormous heat sink that's trying desperately to keep the temps close to 212F. That water is pretty much going to absorb whatever heat is available until it all boils away. The only thing keeping it from absorbing all of it is the thermal transfer rate allowed by the pan. The pan limits the heat transfer and everything above that limit goes toward heating the rest of the smoker. But, unless you really put the spurs to the fire, the pan is going to do a good job of allowing much of the heat to get to the water. IOW, the classic Minion method is probably not the best approach when shooting for 275F with water in the pan.

I'd suggest either abandoning the water when shooting for more than 250F or lighting a lot more charcoal to begin with. I don't think you need to completely abandon the idea of having charcoal ignite during the cook, but you probably want more charcoal burning right from the start so you get enough heat to overcome the sink provided by all that water. Basically, you're going to need to burn a lot more charcoal at a faster rate if you want higher heat and water in the pan. Or leave the pan dry, save a lot of fuel, and raise your potential top end to 375-400.
 
One other thought is the shape of the water pan itself. I have a flat bottom Brinkmann charcoal pan, and one has to wonder if the flat bottom inhibits heat flow somewhat. The 14" WSM's pan has a rounded bottom, and the smoker generates higher heat than the 18" smoker, so one has to wonder if pan shape can affect heat output. I still have my original round bottom 18" WSM water pan. Might be worth a try, to try it again, and see what happens.
 
I doubt that the pan shape is a factor. Flat plate drag is minimal at the velocities of air rising in the WSM. I used the Brinkmann pan in my 18.6 and it was never a problem. I use a heavy duty pizza pan in my 22.5 and I can always get the temp up. That's a 19" flat plate. I suspect that you identified the problem with the high humidity observation. Winter's coming so you may not see that problem again for a while.
 
As Lew suggested, I doubt the pan shape has a great deal of impact on the flow of hot air, but having more of the pan closer to the fire due to the flat bottom might allow it to absorb more of the radiant heat.

I'm trying to remember, is the Brinkmann pan coated in porcelain like the Weber or is it just plain aluminum? If the latter, that would go a long way toward explaining the difference. An aluminum pan will transfer heat much better than steel or porcelain-coated steel. The heat will more readily travel through the pan and be absorbed into the water, keeping it from raising the temperature in the cooking portion of the smoker.
 
JayHeyl said:
I'm trying to remember, is the Brinkmann pan coated in porcelain like the Weber or is it just plain aluminum? If the latter, that would go a long way toward explaining the difference. An aluminum pan will transfer heat much better than steel or porcelain-coated steel. The heat will more readily travel through the pan and be absorbed into the water, keeping it from raising the temperature in the cooking portion of the smoker.
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It's porcelain coated and very thin compared to Weber's pan (or bowl).
 
Rusty James said:
It's porcelain coated and very thin compared to Weber's pan (or bowl).
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It being thin is probably contributing. The thinner the material, the less it's going to resist thermal transfer. More efficient heat transfer means more of the heat going into the water.

I'm not sure if it would hold up, but it might be interesting to experiment with putting a couple loose layers of heavy duty aluminum foil around the outside of the water pan. The air trapped in the foil should slow the thermal transfer. My fear would be that the aluminum might melt though, being that close to the fire.
 
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