Conditions DO matter


 
S

Steve Petrone

TVWBB Platinum Member
We've had two days of rain. Has to be 100% humidity. The charcoal is dry. I have four butts on. The cook started two hours ago with 20 lit coals on kingsford. It is hard to believe but the temp has not risen above 219! When it hit 209 Iclosed the vents to 50%. I have since openned them up more-just hit 220.

Weather does effect your cook. It has been rare when I experience something as extreme as this.
What a slow cook.

The amount of meat makes a big difference too. I forgot there are four good size butts in there.
 
Steve,

Unless your WSM is sitting directly in the rain, it would be my bet that it's the almost 35-40 pounds of meat you got in there that is slowing it down. .
 
35lbs. of meat and a full water pan did slow things down. It has been holding steady at 230 for a while now. Vents at 33%.
 
I've had similiar experiences with lots of meat and gone, as I recall, 1 1/2 + hrs till I was at my stable target temp. That is one of the reasons I began using sand - got to temp a lot faster. Of course, sand does have its downsides and I don't always use it.

Paul
 
Steve,

I did a couple loaves of meatloaf Friday night and experienced the same problem. Couldn't get the temps above 280F even with all vents open. Finally plugged in the guru and got it up to about 320 but it took a long time. Good to know I wasn't the only one experiencing this same problem.
 
I had similar issues in WNC last night, too--my temps were about 15 or 20 degrees cooler than they typically run. I also think the steady breeze may've increased my fuel consumption, too. Still, the pork was ultimately tasty.
 
What are the outside temperatures you guys are talking about? I did a five pound meatloaf Thursday night. The temp was 48*. I started with a full chimney of all gray briquettes and added another half chimney of unlit. When they turned gray I assembled the WSM with an empty waterpan. Bottom vents wide open until the temp at the top vent hit 375*. Then I closed two of the bottoms to two-thirds open. That held the dome temp at 350* for the two hours it took to cook the meatloaf. By the way, I used cherry pellets and really liked the end result.

Griff
 
Steve, I experienced the same conditions as you. We got 6.5" rain in those two days, and I started my cook at 10pm Fri night in rain so hard I would've needed scuba gear to step outside. I had my WSM in the garage in the dry, Kingsford was dry, but temps wouldn't come up like normal. I used the BBQ Guru, but it still huffed and puffed forever to get to my set temp. Only cooked one butt, but it wound up taking 20hrs at 235 deg to reach 200 deg butt temp. First time I've ever cooked in weather like that, so next time I'll need to allow a little extra time I guess.

Ben
 
When it's -4 here in Minnesota this winter, what things should I be planning for? I plan on cooking my usual spare rib/baby back/prime rib for football on sundays?

Is there anything I should know about cookin in this weather? Does it add a few hours to your cooking time?
 
Weather:
No rain-just very humid
No wind to speak of
70's

The high humidity may have slowed things down or most likely lots of cold meat and full water pan just took over 2 hours for me to get to cooking temp.



Cold weather cooking: We do not have to worry about the sub zero weather-WIND can be the worst enemy. I would't be concerned too much about cold as the wind. Some of the guys in wind and cold use wind breaks and 'jackets'. They will chime in about extreme cold smoking.
In Charlotte, I do not normally change much because of outside temps. If very cold I may start a Minion cook with 20 coals not 15.
For this cook I used 20 coals to start because of the larger amount of meat I am cooking. It may have been appropriate to use 25 or 30 hot coals for this large load and full water pan.

At 4.00 am, about 15 hours into the cook, I am at 190 in the cooker and 170 for the butts. There is alot of ash buildup.
I have carefully removed the middle section.
All meat is 165-170. I have raked the coal to one side and added about 2/3's of a chimney of unlit brickettes. Finnally, I replenished the water and reassembled the cooker. Sometimes on long cooks I like to add some lump to the Kingsford to keep the ash buildup down. It seems to burn slower than the Kingsford also.
 
Well, at least I know I'm not alone. I've been fighting since 7:30 this morning to get the WSM up to temperature, with all the vents fully open. Good thing I don't have to serve the bbq today.
 
Has snyone had wind make your lid thermometer read lower than usual?

I cooked my second turkey yesterday. I never could get the lid therm to read more than 325. The wind was blowing a lot.

On my first cook, I had no trouble going all the way up to 350, and even had to close the bottom vents a bit, like I expected.

The first turkey took about 3 hours to cook, but the second one was slightly over-cooked at 2.5 hours even though the lid temp read 25 degrees less the whole time. The turkeys were within a pound of each other. The wind was the only significant difference I could see. The thermometer has always been very accurate for me.

The turkey was good, by the way, I just didn't expect it to well done so much earlier.

Anyone else have a similar experience?

Thanks.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Jay Turner:
Has snyone had wind make your lid thermometer read lower than usual? ...

second one was slightly over-cooked at 2.5 hours even though the lid temp read 25 degrees less the whole time...

Anyone else have a similar experience?

Thanks. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Yep, yesterday. I have a Tel Tru therm permanently mounted in the lid of my WSM. When I first installed it, I checked it by placing my NU-701 probes on the first grate - as expected, the lid therm read about 10 - 15 degrees hotter. This was on a warm day with no breeze. Yesterday (cooler, approx 100% humidity and slightly breezy), with one fully lit chimney and about one and a half unlit on top, I waited for the unlit to ash over and assembled the cooker. I could barely get the lid therm above 300, but my 12 lb. turkey finished in two and a half hours, which is what I would have expected for 350 at the lid. After I pulled the turkey out, I decided to see if the lid therm agreed with an NU-701 probe hung through the top vent. The 701 shot off the scale (reading HHH for overtemp) while the lid therm barely read 305. I guess a) That's why my turkey was done so quick, and b) I have some more investigating to do now.
 
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