HELP! Maintaining temp in a 22.5


 
C

Charles Taber

New member
Background. I previously had an 18.5" that I smoked lots of ribs, butt's and chickens with no significant issues keeping temps in my target ranges. Recently upgraded to a 22.5" found on Craig's list. My 1st smoke on it was a half Boston Butt with temps spiking to 300+ with bottom 3 vents closed and top barely cracked open. Eventually temp dropped to 295. I used both a new lid temp gauge and a ThermPro. Lid gauge measures about 35 degrees cooler than the ThermPro - which tested accurately using the boiling water and ice cube methods. Thought maybe I over loaded the charcoal basket and/or waited too long to start closing bottom vents on the butt smoke. Today I threw on a 6.5# Texas Brisket Flat barely filling the charcoal basket half full this time. At 225 I started closing the bottom vents to about 25% leaving top vent wide open. In 20 minutes the smoker temp had risen to 290 so I closed all 3 bottom vents and set top vent to 50%. 30 minutes later smoker temp was 304 so I closed to the top vent to maybe 10% open. An hour later the ThermPro is reading 267. I'd appreciate any thoughts or suggestions about what the cause might be or what I might be doing wrong (?).

Thanks Charlie
 
I suggest closing the vents down sooner as it is coming up to temp.

Maybe light fewer coals to start.

Do your bottom vents seal well? Does your door seal well? If there are air leaks for inlet air that could be contributing.
 
I'm guessing an air leak.
My 18" has an out of round center (or bowl) and sometimes I have to rotate the center to get it sealed better. It still wants to get hot so I just light fewer coals to start and close the vents earlier than I did when it was new in 2004.
I tried fixing it but finally decided it was easier to just adapt my cooking to this cooker.
 
Thanks for all the great replies. Vents are ok, minimal leak around the door. Based on everyone's input I'm going to start with fewer lit coals and allow it to slowly come up temp and error on the side of closing vents earlier than later.
 
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