Can't get temps down


 
PeterD

PeterD

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Hi all,
I put a gorgeous Angus 12 pound full packer on the 18" WSM last night around 1am, intending for about 15-16 hours at 200°-210°. I'm running with a Stoker, both my manual bottom vents are closed and I even brought the top vent down about halfway, but I just can't get the temp below 250 no matter what I do. I did a minion start with about 10 coals of Comp-K and a few pieces of smoke wood buried in the pile; nothing fancy.

Any idea on what I can do to get temps back down? Dinner will be at 7pm--it's 9:00 am now and I'm already well into the stall. I tried opening the lid briefly but it just comes back even higher!

Thanks in advance!
 
If you can manage, try adding some cool water to the water pan. I have ran into that very same problem several times. I was using just a foiled water pan with a clay saucer inside. What I have done to solve the problem is to set a 3 inch deep cake pan on the lower grate above the foiled water pan, and fill it about half full of water and some sort of liquid to add flavor (juice, soda, etc......). Then, I also started using less and less lit coals to start with, and allow the smoker to come UP to temperature rather than having to bring it down. Sometimes it will take 30 minutes or so for the temperature to stabilize, but at that point, I am good to go with a long, low temp, smoke.

This may or may not help you at this point, but perhaps the next time. And, as you have already discovered, opening the lid or cracking the door will only raise the temps, not lower them. You can try closing down that top vent to about 3/4 closed, but be careful of going any further than that as suit can become a problem. BTW, 250 won't hurt a brisket in the long run, especially if you can keep it from going much higher. I have seen some cook them at 300 or even more. Good luck with finishing up that hunk of gold.
 
I think you'll be fine. In my experience, a 12 lb'er will easily be in the stall after 8 hours in the smoker. Rise in internal temperature will slow down as the meat temp converges on smoker temp.

Adding cool water as mentioned before can help. I also am not a fan of closing the top vent--even partially. When I've done it, I've gotten soot.

Taking the lid off won't help and can sometimes hurt by igniting smoke wood with the new source of oxygen.

My guess is it'll work out alright, especially with some rest time baked into your schedule.
 
I'm not a fan of closing the top vent at all either. I have done it occasionally but only for a very limited time.
I have not done a brisket but from everything I have read on here, a brisket only does better when it rests for quite some time. If you get to the tenderness you want a little early, pull it, wrap it and put it in a cooler wrapped in towels. I bet it will only come out even better
 
I'm not generally a fan of it either but if I hadn't, I'd have probably been cooking hot and fast instead. I put a gallon of icewater in the pan and nothing's changed. I'd built a 2 to 3 hour hold time into my cook calculations.

And I normally put the meat on as it's coming up, and I did just that this morning. From the time I put the body of the smoker together, put the grate in, put in the stoker probes and went to fetch the meat out of the fridge it was no more than 3 minutes. And it had shot up from nothing to 240 in that time.
 
So, it's now about an hour and a half later, and even with a gallon of icewater, I'm still at 250°.
 
Your temp gauge could be off it shouldn't be that high closed off like that but 250 is where I'd cook it anyways
 
This is using the Stoker's pit probe, which was fine the last time I used it late last fall. I'll put my Maverick in there and see if there's any difference but I'm guessing it'll be within a few degrees of the Stoker. I generally DO like to cook at 240-250, but timing here was a problem. Dinner at 7 = brisket in the cooler at 4:30 to 5:00. An 11 pound packer, at 1.25 to 1.5 hours per pound, is about 16 hours on the pit at low temps, or 13-14 hours at my usual 240.

Since I didn't want to start it up at 3am, nor did I want to do a hot-and-fast brisky--both the wife and I adore thick crusty black bark as much as the meat itself--I figured a midnight start and 16 slow hours would be ideal. The meat hit the pit at 12:40am. Obviously, the laws of thermodynamics had other ideas overnight :( This ain't my first rodeo, but I'll be darned if I can figure out what's going on here. I'm at 167 internal after 10 hours. and its showing signs of breaking the stall at this point. I'm afraid if I hold in the oven it'll dry out, but I don't feel comfortable going more than 4 hours in the faux Cambro cooler. If I had to guess, I'd say "done" will occur somewhere between 2 and 3pm, and the better half won't even walk through the front door until at least 7:00.

I think next time I want to go this low in temps I'll only use 2 or 3 lit briquettes instead of 10 or 12. I do at least a dozen smokes a year and I've only had temp problems once or twice since I started. This one definitely takes the cake. Or the brisket.
 
Peter, the cooler will continue to work just fine as long as you keep the meat wrapped tight, and the temps up. You can always add some heat to the cooler as time passes. If your oven is free, just transfer the wrapped brisket to the oven and set the temp at the lowest possible (175 or less). At that temp, it wont cook any more, and as long as it stays tightly wrapped, it shouldn't dry out.

On the WSM temperature.......getting those things to lower temps is a real PITA. Bringing it up slowly seems to be the answer. And liquids are supposed to help hold the temps down somewhat.

What about probe placement? Just thinking out loud here. Could it be in a place that is getting more direct heat like near the edge of the grate? Is it under the brisket where heat could get trapped? Just asking........sometimes it's the little things that cause a panic. Good luck with the outcome.

Oh..... I also forgot to ask you this........on your Stoker, can you adjust the damper to regulate the amount of air getting in when the blower is off? On my Guru, there is a sliding damper that I always set in the middle before I start so that I can either increase, or, decrease, as the cook progresses. Just another thought.
 
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The probe is held in place by a clip that suspends it about 2" off the grate. The placement is about 1 to 2" from the meat, over the water pan and not anywhere near the gap between the pan and the side of the cooker. There's no damper on my Stoker (an older hard-wired model, not the newer WiFi version). That would be a great modification to do, in fact. I've also double-verified that all the other vents are completely closed.

I can hold in the oven as low as 170°, but I'm just afraid of it drying out is all. I also don't want to harm the bark by having it set in foil for too long. My real hope today would have been to take it off the pit at 5 or 5:30, or better still, if temps had regulated properly, hold the pit down to 190 and keep the meat in there until about a half-hour before slicing.
 
PeterD said:
The probe is held in place by a clip that suspends it about 2" off the grate. The placement is about 1 to 2" from the meat, over the water pan and not anywhere near the gap between the pan and the side of the cooker. There's no damper on my Stoker (an older hard-wired model, not the newer WiFi version). That would be a great modification to do, in fact. I've also double-verified that all the other vents are completely closed.

I can hold in the oven as low as 170°, but I'm just afraid of it drying out is all. I also don't want to harm the bark by having it set in foil for too long. My real hope today would have been to take it off the pit at 5 or 5:30, or better still, if temps had regulated properly, hold the pit down to 190 and keep the meat in there until about a half-hour before slicing.
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As long as you let it lose it's steam before wrapping back up to hold, the bark will be just fine. While I prefer pork butts pulled within an hour off the pit, there's some real benefit to holding brisket for a good while. You might want to look up Harry Soo, Myron Mixon, and Aaron Franklin's techniques on holding.
 
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