Cajun Bandit High Airflow Charcoal Ring & Guru DigiQ on 22"WSM

[Brian Moriarty]

Anyone using using this arrangement?

I have never had any issues with my Guru on my 18" Bullet or Large BGE. So I decided to do a High Heat butt/picnic cook on the 22" WSM using the Cajun Bandit stainless steel High Airflow charcoal ring.
I filled the ring with an entire 21lb bag of Kingsford and did a Minion start with a weed torch, dry pan w/pizza stone for a heat sink and plugged the Guru in to do its thing. I couldn't get it over 300*, I'd open the door and get it up to 360 or higher but once shut the temps would drop and hover @299>.

Long story made longer-
the butts were done in @4.5 hours and I got very nice slices from the money muscle, which was what I was shooting for, but when I moved the 10lb picnic to the top rack, the temps shot up and hovered @325>. It was like the picnic was another heat sink in the cooker! Granted, 4.5 hours for 6lb butts and 6 hours for a 10 picnic is better than I can get using my drum smoker, but this was a stressful Guru assisted cook for me!

BBQBob surmised that it may have been the amount of briqs was choking the fan, and I'm thinking he's partially right. The Cajun Bandit ring is meant for increased capacity for extended low and slow burn times, so I'll have to try the Guru with the stock ring to see if it was the case.

I had not seen any posts on this subject, so I thought I'd throw it out here and share my experiences or if anyone else has been through this?

 

[Tom Raveret]

brian I think i would ask a more general question on the BBQing board of what people have done to get the 22 up to temp for a High temp cook to get a litle more exposure. I have an 18 and a 22 and formerly a digiq now a cyber-Q but havent jumped on the high temp bandwagon yet. Also a call out to the tech support line at BBQ Guru might give you some good insights on how to get it up to temp for a high temp cook.

Are you leaving the top vent all the way open and the adjustable damper ofn the fan all the way open?

 

[Ed Roach]

Hi Brian,

I have the Cajun Bandit stainless steel High Airflow charcoal ring and I use it in my 22" WSM along with my DigiQ II. I cooked two, 13 pound turkies with an empty foiled water pan and had no problem keeping the smoker at 325 degrees even when the outside temp was 25 degrees. The lid vent was open 25% during the entire smoke. I used a full load of lump charcoal and started with a full chimney of lit coals. My 10cfm fan was wide open during the cook. I think I could go 350 degrees in warm weather. The lump probably helped with the higher temps. Try lump and just use a foiled water pan as you don't need the heatsink with a Guru.

 

[Brian Moriarty]

I'll give it another shot, this was just a practice cook, to work on timing for a comp setting. Probably won't use lump as we prefer Kingsford for comps. I'll remove the pizza stone too.