Burned out overnight


 
J

Jeff Wildrick

TVWBB Fan
I'm cooking 6 butts for a church dinner. Started with an overflowing pile of Kingsford about 9:00 last night (Minion). At bedtime all seemed to be going well - having a hard time maintaining 225, but hovering around there.

This morning at 8:00 I woke to discover that all of the charcoal was burned up. Looks like the temp held until about 4:00 am then began to drop steadily until pit temp was 115.

I took meat section off of smoker, added coals and some wood to grate, and started a chimney of charcoal. When chimney about 1/2 lighted I poured the entire thing over the unlit coals and reassembled the smoker.

Meat temp had dropped to about 140.

Any suggestions? I've still got my target temp at 125, but thinking I may need to raise it.

Can't figure how I burned all that fuel! It did rain overnight - can that be a factor?

Clay saucer. Top vents 1/3. Running Stoker.
 
Correction...
I had my target temp for the pit at 225. I've just raised it to 250, figuring I slowed the cooking process down by a few hours with the heat loss overnight.

At 10:00 this morning the pit is 250, the meat is 152. I need to start serving at 5:00.
 
Just pulled the 6 Butts off the smoker with internal temp of about 190. They feel tender as butter, and I've got them wrapped and nestled in a cooler until dinner time.

Interesting that after the long sit at about 140, once the temp in the smoker went back up they cooked pretty fast. There was no "160" plateau.

Once I got more coals in the smoker, the Stoker held the temp rock-steady at 250.
 
I believe 140 is the temp at which bacteria can grow but given the situation, it is probably OK.

Glad it came out well. It certainly seems that sitting there at 140 did the job of breaking down the connected tissue as you mentioned.
 
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