Heat Control

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I'm having a little trouble with heat control. I use the Minion method to light a chimney full of charcoal. I can get all the charcoals lit in about 20 minutes. I then dump all the charcoal in the grill and ten minutes later the grill temperature is over 500 degrees.

I close all the vents and the temperature starts slowly dropping. Is there a quick way to drop the grill temperature down to 250 degrees after initial startup?
 
I'm having the exact opposite problem. I fire up using the standard method and can't seem to get the temp above 240 at any point. I've had to cook with all vent wide open at all times. I'm hoping I had a bad batch of charcol. I'm doing some chicken today, with a fresh bag, so I will know soon enough.

Wish I could help. Actually wish I had your problem.
 
Rick,

Many people who have had your problem have been putting the water pan too low down, where it is sitting on the coals. Is you water pan sharing the same ledge as your lower grill?
 
Randy, yes, the water pan is sitting on the little ledge at the bottom of the lower bracket. I assume this is right. It is where the instructions said to place the pan.
 
Arsenio
A full chimney of hot coals is way to much, try a 1/4 to 1/3 of chimney and you will find it much easier to control the temp. You want to control the temp on the way up and not have to try to bring it back down. Are using water in the waterpan or sand?

Rick
Let us know how it goes?
Jim
 
I'm with rick, cant get it up...lol.
Today I tried full lit chimney over unlit with 1/4 brinkman full of tap water. Temp got to 250 vent, put in ribs and dropped to 190..all vents open, finally got up to 230 vent..where I want it..but I couldn't get it any higher if I wanted to, which, some day I will want to.
 
Jim, I'm using water in my water pan. So start with a 1/4 to 1/3rd chimney full of charcoal. I presume if the grill doesn't get hot enough, open the vents and then add more coals to get more heat.

I'll try that tomorrow. My Boston Butt is currently in a brine solution. Tomorrow is the cooking day.

Thanks for your help.

PS. I'm using a Weber Kettle Grill. When I need higher quantities of food, I may spring for a WSM.
 
Brian

If you were using the standard method and waited for the unlit coals to gray over I can't imagine why the temp would not have gone to 400. Then of course you would have the vents closed and wait till it got down to around 325 to put on the meat. Did you put the meat on before the unlit coals grayed over as sort of a Minion/Standard combo? I have thought of that but never tried it.
 
the only time I used the standard method was my first cook doing BRITU. I didn't wait for the top coals to turn grey, but till the wood was 75% burned. the rest of the time I used the minion method.
 
Brian

OK I'm with you. Got confused about the full lit chimmney. With that much hot coal over a full chamber you would think you'd be getting lots of heat ? My experiences with Minion have been with a lot less lit coals and I don't recall having probs with the heat. However I wasn't trying to get dome temps over about 260.

I'll leave this to the experts.

PRG
 
>>Arsenio,

>>Have did you last calibrate your thermometer(s)?

>>Just a thought

And a fine thought it is! I calibrated my thermometers in January--at the time the probes were 5 and 12 degrees low so I compensate when I cook. I may have to check the probes again now that I replaced the batteries because I think the probes are reading correctly.
 
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