Big temp spike after stable smoking


 
S

Steve Duf

New member
On Christmas Day at 4am I put a seven pound Boston Butt on the WSM at 229 using Kingsford Blue and pecan and apple chunks. I started the WSM at about 2:35 so the smoker had found it's temp and was holding--like it always does because the WSM is awesome like that. I had the pork out of the fridge for about an hour. I used the Minion method and had buried a couple of chunks of apple in the unlit charcoal, pecan on top.
After adjusting the WSM after putting the pork on the top rack, stayed up for an hour, had a beer-- early I know but what the heck Santa would understand--and the temp went down and then back up (237) and I adjusted the vents and it was holding at 225 for an hour and I took a well deserved snoozer. Maverick alarm started going off about two hours later with the Temp at 264. Just wondering what caused the huge temp spike---maybe the buried chunk of wood? No change in wind or weather... Needless to say it was a simple fix and and the pulled pork that we ate for Christmas dinner was awesome. Just wondering about the temp spike...
 
It could of been the buried chunk of wood, but I dunno, never buried them personally.
Did you use a heat sink, like water, clay saucer or sand, or did you just use an empty foiled pan?

Tim
 
I always figure it just means that more of the charcoal has caught fire and less air is the cure. (I'm sure you just tweaked the vents again and it was all good). :wsm:
 
I don't consider going from 225/230ish up to 260/270 a huge temp spike. I don't know what caused it. My guesses would be as mentioned - wood catching, wind fanning the flames, I piece of quick burning charcoal??? I wonder where your temp probe was - close to the meat that after a couple hours started to warm up? Said another way, the cold meat may have been throwing your thermometer off if it was too close to the meat. I also wonder if you had left it alone if it would have settled back down. I think so. Anyway, as you said, the meat turned out great as I would suspect because even hitting 300 is just going to cook the meat faster rather than do any harm.
 
Thanks for responding guys... I did have water in the pan. The probe was on the outside of the grate but was relatively close to the pig so that may have contributed, never would have thought of that so that is helpful for future smokes. Don't think the wind kicked up but, hey, I was snoozing so only the WSM knows the answer to that. As far as the smoker settling down on its own...not too sure and will never know. I do know that the pulled pork came out awesome and that is all that matters. Would love to post pictures in the future but am pretty much a technological imbecile so that is a work in progress. Thanks again for the replies.
 
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