8 hour ribs / 18 hour butt......WInd and WSM location????


 
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I did ribs and a butt this weekend for my block party. I put the butt on at midnight. Using the minion I had temps around 180 buy 1AM and went to bed. I got up at 7am and the temp was 212F. Went back to bed. At 9am the temp was 214F at the grate. At 1030 I opened the vents to raise temp. At 11am the temp was 225 and I moved the butt to the bottom and put 6 racks of BB's on top. It got very windy out and my temps went down to 190. By 3pm the temps were only 199F. I added a chimney of lit coals at this time and the temps went to 214F at 4:30. At 6pm I took off two racks and served. Two more 20 minutes later and the last two at 7pm. By this time the temps were around 220F. All were great and some comments were "these are the best ribs I ever had", "If you were a woman I would marry you", " I think I'm in love". Hmmm, the grate temps never went above 220F and much of the time were below 200F. The butt was back on top at 7pm and came off at 8pm with internal temps between 194 and 199F. It was really good. I served on buns with coleslaw. Up here on LI no one ever had that. It was well enjoyed, though some were sceptical of putting slaw on the bun, they tried it and liked it.
I found out a couple of things. Wind really lowers burn time. In the backyard I keep the WSM in an outdoor shower so there is no wind. I did a 23 hour burn over 210F on one heaping mound of kingsford in that location. For the party I put the WSM in the front yard. It got a little windy and my burn time was 15 hours at lower temps. When I added coal I noticed there was much unburned coal. I have not had that problem in the backyard. Why would the wind prevent coals from burning? I would think the oppisite.
 
Keith,

A while back on this board, somebody mentioned that too much air flow could actually cool off your coals.

I'm curious, how many coals did you use for your latest cook? Also, how were your vents set when you first went to bed at 1 a.m.? I have to make adjustments to keep my WSM down at the level yours was running at. Nothing wrong with cooking in the 210 range, as some of the best ribs I've ever done were cooked around 200 deg. for 9 hours. I've also done excellent ribs at 245 deg, so I guess we could agree there is more than one way to skin a cat, or a rack of ribs.

Rick
 
I do not think it was airflow through the wsm but around it. My wsm is pretty air tight. The wind was strong, 15-25mph. I thought I mentioned it but during that wind the grate temp actually dropped to 177F. When I took the butt off at 8pm the air temp was 10-15 degrees cooler and the grate temp was 227. At 10:30pm it was 224F.

This is he seventh cook I have done like this. They all went similar but the first two I stayed up for. The only difference was one included a full mounded ring of coals and a butt (similar to this past Saturday). The other was a full ring of coals (not mounded)for ribs alone.

I use the minion with 15 lit coals on top. I assemble the cooker and figure by the time I get it all closed up with the meat and probes the coals are catching on. I recorded one for 16 hours.
Time Temp
1am 151F
130 156
200 158
230 162
300 169
330 179
400 180
430 182
500 185
530 186
600 191
715 199 (oops, I fell asleep)
730 199
800 201
900 206
1000 207
1100 219 (sun on WSM)
1200 224
1pm 234 (lots of sun)
200 232 (sun going behind garage)
300 221
400 219
At 5 the butt came off and the temp was 215F. I checked the cooker at 730pm and it was at 212. I dumped it to smoke some cheese.
All temps were at the grate on a tested digital thermometer.

The one with the mounded coal started at 1pm at 162F. At 830am it was at 206F. It burned from 198-216 for 20 hours, with a total of 23 hours. When I went to bed at the 23 hour mark it was 198.

I find that opening all three vents less is more consistent and efficient than opening one more. Right after assembling I set all three vents at maybe 10-15% open, maybe less but not more.
 
I agree that being consistent with the vent openings is the way to go, though I have had times where I lazily opened one up 100% and was able to get the WSM to stabilize pretty well.

It looks like your WSM is doing exactly what it should, but I might suggest that if you want the temperature to get to 200+ Deg. faster, that you open up one or two of the vents about 50% initially. I usually set all three of mine at 50%, and then adjust them back down if I want lower temperatures.

Rick
 
Somewhere, I think on this site, There's discussions about building simple wind screens out of plywood or other materials that's supposed to help stabilize temps. during windy conditions.
Hope this helps.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Billy Gardner:
[qb]Somewhere on this site there's discussions about building simple wind screens[/qb] <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>That would be on the Cold Weather Cooking page.

Regards,
Chris
 
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