Guru Questions


 
J

Justin Hembree

New member
Hello all. I am new to the forum. So, please excuse me if this has been covered before.

We have been competing in barbeque comps for about two years now. We have a custom pull behind that we use for all categories except brisket. For brisket, we use Old Faithful, a 22.5 inch WSM. I have finally moved into the 21st century and purchased a Guru (DigQ DX, Pit Viper 10 cfm fan, mount kit) and have a few questions. The Guru should be delivered by the end of this week and our next comp is the weekend of August 12th. I hope to get one or two practice runs with the new toy.

Anyway, …

How should I load the WSM in terms of charcoal/wood? How should I start the fire? We normally load it to the max with charcoal, place wood chips on top, and use the Minion method with a coffee can. Can this same method be used with the Guru? Or should I do something different?

In terms of the vents, should all the vents, except for the one the Guru is using be closed? Should the top vent remain all the way open?

Any other advice or suggestions you can think of?

Also, off the topic, our last cook was the first time we used sand in the water pan. Up until then, we had used water. The WSM seem to cook 25 to 30 degrees hotter with the sand. Has anyone else experienced this? I must also note that we were in Greenwood, SC and it was hot as blue blazes!

Thanks, Justin
 
I've run the 22 with the guru about ten times now but I am by no means an expert.

I have run both Kingfords regular and Stubbs Briquets and had similar results with the Guru DigiQ DX. I use a double foiled water pan and have since day 2. For a long cook, I load it full from the whole bag and then pull 30 bricks back out to put in the chimney starter. I put the wood on top and then just sprinkle the hot charcoal over the top. I have not tried the coffee can method so I can't tell you if that is better or not.

For the vents, I leave the top open all the way all the time and all the bottom vents closed unless I am doing high heat brisket. I have found the guru cannot pump enough air for high heat unless another vent is open about 40% and I start with 50 hot coals.

My only advice is the damper setting. I leave it open until the smoker gets to temp and then **** it 50% or sometimes more. I find if left all the way open, it will overshoot or run a little hot (Set at 240 and the grate is at 250).

I love my set-up and it's so nice to have it almost as easy to run as an indoor oven. I've gone 12+ hours with a load of charcoal and had plenty left when I pulled off pork butts.

Tom
 
I've had my BBQ Guru for a month or so and have used it three times. I've done two cooks with the temp set at 225 and one chicken cook at 300. For both situations I had all lower vents closed, and the damper on the guru fan was set at 75% open. The top vent I adjusted to 80% open. I used about 75% full charcoal ring with a hollowed out space in the middle, and dumped just under 1/2 of a Weber chimney of lit briquettes. After dumping the lit coals, I let the guru bring the smoker up to temp, which took about 15 mins. for the 225 cook and about 25 mins. for the 300 cook. The guru held temps +/- 8 degress for 9 to 10 hours in both situations. I'm anxious to try it in colder weather as I've only cooked with it on 90 degree days.

I'm loving it so far. Good luck.
 
I've used my Guru for LOTS of cooks. Have had it for several years.

I've done cooks anywhere from 200 to 325/350. Mostly 250 to 325.

I typically keep the damper on the fan about 50-75%, but have done a number of cooks at 100% open, but cutting back on the damper has helped with the occasional over shoots.

I always keep all bottom vents closed, top vent open. I've done this when the adapter was installed in one of the holes in a bottom vent (aluminum tape over the other 3 holes in the vent).

I've since made a dedicated hole for the guru mount, which I like better since I don't loose functionality of that 3rd vent when not using the Guru. With the Guru in the dedicated hole, when not in use I just put a silicone plug in the hole for the fan.

I rarely have used briquettes. I've pretty much been 100% hardwood charcoal from day one. Just like it better, this fact doesn't say you should - just thought it important to mention.

Now I pretty much always fill the ring unless I know it's going to be a really short cook. Reason is that with HW Charcoal you can re-use whatever is not burned. Pretty sure you can do the same with briquettes. IOW - you cook until you are done, then close all the vents and the fire will go out leaving you with coals that you can use again for the next cook.

You just dump the "reuse coals" in during your next cook. I do this with the Performer as well in that I always start with a full chimney pretty much and control the temps with the vents. But I don't use my Performer for smoking.

That said, when I load the ring I tend to either dump the lump in and shake the ring a bit to settle things out to reduce air pockets (can cause temp jumps, but not critical) for a more even controlled burn overall. Often I will stack by hand to get as much fuel in as possible and eliminate major gaps, etc.

Again the idea is that I won't have to mess with adding fuel typically, and whatever doesn't get used is extinguished once you shut down the cooker.

I have used the coffee can of lit coals in the center as you mention very early on (before owning the Guru). I found over all that it worked OK. I've also just dumped 10-20 lit briquettes on top of the unlit as well with good results.

But back to the Guru. I typically use about 10 to 20 briquettes (yes I keep a bag of HW briquettes on hand for this) of lit on top and let the Guru do it's thing. I've lately leaned towards less lit (10-15) as I have found that the Guru compensates anyway and bringing up the temp slower is better IMHO and prevents overshooting.

I've always just used a foiled pan (easy cleaning) and no water for all of my cooks since running with the Guru. I cook that way now even when not using it.
 
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